The second part of the symposium is organized by Annette-Carina van der Zaag and Rory Crath, in collaboration with Visual AIDS, as part of the Terra Foundation for American Art–supported project Aesthetics of Ruination. The project began as a collective exploration of the work of two artists lost to AIDS—Robert Farber (1948–1995), whose Western Blot series invokes the imagery of the bubonic plague, and Ronald Lockett (1965–1998), whose assemblages incorporate salvaged industrial materials. Scholars and artists who participated in the project will invite the audience to engage the HIV/AIDS archive as an archive of feeling and sensing. Through presentations and performances—with each one refracting differently its own relation to the sculptural works and practices of these artists—the Aesthetics of Ruination collective will explore how “feeling backwards and waywards” can envision alternative, more livable futures.
Registration
Admission is free, and RSVP is required.
This program takes place in person at MoMA, with an option to join online via Zoom.
Register here: www.moma.org
Program (in NL time)
20:00 Welcome and introduction
20:15 Researching Artists Lost to AIDS
Presentations by Visual AIDS Research Fellows:
Timothy Bradley on Frank Green (1957–2013)
Avik Sarkar on Miss Kitty Litter (1962–1995)
Jorge Bordello on Sergio Hernandez Frances (1964–1995)
21:15 Break
21:45 Aesthetics of Ruination
Introduction by Annette-Carina van der Zaag and Rory Crath
Presentations by Corentin JPM LEVEN, Eva Hayward, Rory Crath, Marquis Bey, and Julie Tolentino
23:00 Break
23:30 Aesthetics of Ruination
Presentations by Joseph M. Pierce, Julie Tolentino, C. (Constantine Jones), and Annette-Carina van der Zaag
Audience response
00:30 Closing remarks
Visual AIDS Research Fellows
Jorge Bordello is a visual artist from Tlaxcala, Mexico.
Timothy E. Bradley is a New York City–based writer and 2025 Lambda Literary Fellow whose work has been published in Foglifter Journal, Visual AIDS, and exhibition catalogues for Galleria Poggiali, Monique Meloche Gallery, and ICA San Francisco.
Avik Sarkar is a student at Harvard Law School, where she focuses on feminist legal theory and queer/trans legal history in the 20th-century United States.
Marquis Bey is a professor of Black studies and gender and sexuality studies at Northwestern University.
Annette-Carina van der Zaag is a scholar/artist at the Sandberg Institute, Rietveld Academy Amsterdam, who explores themes and practices of sexuality, critical negativity, and fugitivity through writing and wearable sculpture.
Rory Crath is an interdisciplinary researcher and associate professor at Smith College School for Social Work who explores such themes as risk governance, the material-aesthetics of biopolitics and its discontents, and queer embodiments.
Dr. Eva Hayward is a teacher and scholar at the University of New Mexico.
C. (Constantine Jones) is a Greek American thingmaker from Tennessee whose practice is collaborative in nature and rooted at the intersections of HIV/AIDS futurity, communal mythmaking as cultural archive, and poetry as catalyst for social instigation.
Corentin JPM LEVEN is a Franco-Norwegian performer and stage designer. His artistic practice revolves around HIV and the study of the memorial in contrast to the monument in the various temporalities of the AIDS crisis and its ongoing challenges.
Joseph M. Pierce (Cherokee Nation citizen) is associate professor and director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Stony Brook University, and a former scholar-in-residence at MoMA.
Julie Tolentino creates objects, sound, and durational performances. They are a faculty member and program codirector at CalArts, a TDR Provocations editor, a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, and, in 2026, a returning MacDowell Fellow and Queer|Art Mentor.
