Humanities and Social Sciences Library > Collections > Manuscripts > Finding Aids

Inventory of the Gran Fury Collection, 1989-1994

Contents


Summary

Main Entry: Gran Fury
Title: Collection, 1989-1994
Size: 4 linear ft. (5AB, 2FB, 3 oversize flat archival boxes)
Source: Gift of John Lindell, 1990, and Loring McAlpin, 1997.
Finding aid: Compiled by Valerie Wingfield, January 2000
Restrictions: Use of extremely oversize material in tubes requires permission of Curator of Manuscripts. Smaller reproductions of oversize works are available for use elsewhere in the Gran Fury Collection. Use access copies of audiovisual materials rather than originals in Box 7.
Description: Gran Fury defined itself as a collective of AIDS activists opposed to government and social institutions that render invisible those people living with AIDS. This collective of artists developed from the ranks of ACT UP/NY (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, New York). The name Gran Fury derives from the Plymouth automobile of the same name, the once preferred mode of police transportation nationwide. The collective was formed in 1987 following the creation of a collaborative window exhibit at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and over the next seven years produced numerous public projects. The collection contains some correspondence, press releases, and information on Gran Fury. s projects, as well as selections of their work, including posters, stickers, fliers, printed ads, billboards and bus signs.
Copyright: In donating this collection to The New York Public Library, Gran Fury declared their works to be in the public domain.
Special formats: Photographs, slides and transparencies; audio- and videocassettes.

Container List

Box

 

1

General Correspondence 1988-1991.

 

Gran Fury background information.

 

Gran Fury slide presentation.

 

 

 

PRINTED MATERIALS

 

 

 

AIDS: the Artists. Response.  An exhibition catalog of artwork displayed at the Hoyt L. Sherman Gallery, Ohio State University from February 24 through April 16, 1989. (2 copies removed to oversized Box 6).

 

Art Against AIDS on the Road. May 18 . June 18, 1989. An exhibition catalog of specially commissioned works of art which appeared on billboards, illuminated bus shelters, exterior bus panels, print and electronic media throughout the San Francisco Bay City area. Pamphlet, 3 copies.

 

Cahier: propos et projets. An exhibition catalog for the exhibit entitled Pour la suite de Monde. This exhibit was held at the Musee d. art contemporain de Montreal, May 26 . October 11, 1992

 

Commitment. An exhibition catalog of artwork displayed at the Power Plant Art Gallery in Toronto, Canada, January 19 through February 25, 1990. This exhibit was created by New York and Philadelphia artists against oppression and discrimination.

 

Images & Words: Artists respond to AIDS. An exhibition catalog of artwork displayed at the Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia, November 6 through December 8, 1990. Street Settlement in New York City from December 1, 1989 through January 8, 1990.

 

Old Glory. The American flag in contemporary art. An exhibition catalog of artwork displayed at the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, June 14 . August 14, 1994. 2 copies.

 

XLIV Esposizione internazionale d. arte. La biennale di venezia. Fabbri editori. An exhibition catalog of the forty-fourth biennial international art exposition held in Venice in 1990.

 

Books:

 

Crimp, Douglas and Rolston, Adam. AIDS Demo Graphics. Seattle: Bay Press, 1990.

 

Reimaging America, the arts of social change. Edited by Mark O. Brien and Craig Little. Forward by Bernice Johnson Reagon. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1990.

 2

Periodicals:

 

Art and Conflict. Frame No. 2. Bomb. Winter 1991

 

Barnard Bulletin 1990

 

Bomb. Winter 1991 (removed to oversized Box 6).

 

Elsevier 1990

 

New Observations. October 1988

 

Outlook. Summer 1990

 

Stedelijk. 1990/91

 

Press Clippings 1988-1994; Miscellaneous Newspapers

 

Miscellany

3

Images and Words: Artists respond to AIDS (invitation)

 

Photographs:

 

AIDS isn't over for anybody until it's over for everybody. Published on the cover of Bomb. see: Box 6

 

Barbara Bush image used with a Gran Fury slogan

 

Day Without Art

 

Jerry Falwell, Televangelist. AIDS is God's judgement of a society that does not live by his rules

 

Montreal Project Flag

 

Sexism rears its unprotected head (6 images, 1 contact print)

 

Sign: Men use condoms or beat it.

 

Sign: NYC owns 30,000 empty apts and has 30,000 homeless people&

 

Sign: Shelters are deadly for homeless people with AIDS&

 

Sign: 10,000 people with AIDS are homeless...

 

When a government turns its back on its people, is it civil war?

 

Group photo at the Municipal Art Society award.

 

Gran Fury art works:

 

During this program at least 6 people with AIDS will die.

 

Fight Back. Fight AIDS.

 

Good Luck.

 

The government has blood on its hands.

 

Kissing doesn't kill: Greed and indifference do. (color and b/w)

 

Men use condoms or beat it.

 

Stonewall . 69 Riot. (small stickers and paper folder)

 

Welcome to America.

 

Text panels for Venice The Pope and the penis.

 4

Mainly oversize versions of material in box 3.

 5

When a government turns its back on its people, is it Civil War?
Billboard

 6

Periodical and catalog, oversized material

 7

Audiovisual materials:

 

Gran Fury conference on audiocassette *03420

 

Footage of Kissing on VHS videocassette.* 00874

 

Kissing Doesn't Kill. guests: Tom Kalin, Michael Nesline, and John Lindell. Interview with members of Gran Fury. Originalon ¾ inch Umatic.* 00873* Order by control number.

 8-9

Slides and transparencies of Gran Fury Works

 10

Posters:

 

250,000 Gay AIDS Cases last week, 50,000 this week? Fact or fiction?

 

Je me souviens. (two sizes of this poster)

 

All people with AIDS are innocent. Spring AIDS ACTION '88: Nine days of nationwide AIDS related actions & protests.

 

AIDS: 1 IN 61.

 

The medical fact of AIDS is made more critical by the fear and of drug addicts, gays and lesbians, ... A project by Gran Fury for the Decade show: frameworks of identity in the 1980's. (posters are in English and Italian)

 

Gran Fury for Art against AIDS& on the road. Original logo design by Dan Friedman. (two large rolled posters)

 

The New York Crimes. Mar. 28, 1989.

 

Venice proofs (see also: Box 3)

Unboxed

Bus Posters:

 

Kissing doesn't kill: Greed and indifference do.

 

Sexism rears its unprotected head. AIDS Kills. (Black lettering on yellow background).

 

Welcome to America. The only industrialized country besides South Africa without national health care. (Printed on Kodak paper).

 

Use condoms. Beat it. (Black lettering on yellow background).

 

Its bad medicine to deny people information that can help end the AIDS crisis.... (Left side of poster: First Vatican Conference on AIDS, 1989; white lettering on purple background). 1 duplicate poster.

Unboxed

Box-mounted works:

 

"Know your scumbags."

 

Two plaques in Italian and English by Dennis Brack/Black Star.


    

Melanie A. Yolles
July, 2001