Luis Cruz Azaceta

As we are out of the gallery due to the COVID-19 pandemic and unable to enjoy our current exhibition, another work by Luis Cruz Azaceta comes to mind. While it was painted in response to a different pandemic, the stark representation of a virus (in this case referencing HIV) is an all too accurate visualization of our fears and anxieties.

In the late 1980s, Azaceta was living and working in New York during the height of the AIDS epidemic. As a witness to both the countless lives being lost to the disease - including his friends and fellow artists - and the general lack of empathy for those who were suffering, he created an extensive body of work in response to the epidemic and its ravaging effects on those around him. “My concern is with humanity," he once explained. "I want to confront the viewer with life and with what we are doing to each other. I hope to awaken in the viewer a sense of compassion… without compassion there is nothing.”

Our current exhibition of Luis Cruz Azaceta's paintings and drawings, Personal Velocity: 40 Years of Painting can be viewed here; works from Azaceta's AIDS series were included in the 2018 exhibition, Luis Cruz Azaceta: 1984-1989.