GRAN FURY
Art Is Not Enough
Edited by Adriano Pedrosa and André Mesquita
MASP/KMEC. 207 pages, $39.95
IF EVER WE NEEDED a reminder of just how resilient, resourceful, creative, and ingenious the queer community can be during a crisis, it’s now. Curated and published by the private Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand in Brazil in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name, Gran Fury: Art Is Not Enough is a tribute to and compilation of the works of Gran Fury, the artistic collective that was formed in the 1980s adjacent to the activist group ACT UP. Given that the United States’ current regime is exponentially worse than the Reagan Administration, the timing of this book’s arrival couldn’t be better.
For the uninitiated, Gran Fury came into being soon after ACT UP was founded in 1987. In his chapter “Art is Not Enough,” curator and co-author André Mesquita analyzes the development and creation of some key Gran Fury works.
There was more repurposing with the read my lips poster. This featured two men in sailor garb engaging in a deep kiss. The “Read my lips” slogan was lifted from the campaign of President George H. W. Bush, who stated it repeatedly before promising he would enact “no new taxes” (a promise he later broke). Another unforgettable image is that of three couples (two men, two women, and a male-female couple) locking lips beneath the words “kissing doesn’t kill: greed and indifference do.” The image was a brilliant response to corporate and government apathy in the face of the burgeoning pandemic and reassured viewers that casual contact (like kissing) was not a means of HIV transmission.
In another campaign, the collective published “The New York Crimes,” a New York Times parody in which news stories responded to the crisis as if it were, well, an actual crisis. It was brilliant agitprop art. Gran Fury was exceptional at pointing out the abject avarice of Big Pharma. One poster featured an actual quote from Patrick Gage, a researcher for Hoffmann-LaRoche: “One million [people with AIDS]isn’t a market that’s exciting. Sure, it’s growing, but it’s not asthma.” I had to read the quote several times to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating.
This book was developed alongside a Brazilian exhibition of Gran Fury works, the first in Latin America. The local context is brought into focus: Much of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s clueless and wildly dishonest response to the Covid-19 pandemic is reminiscent of the head-in-the-sand tactics of the Reagan and Bush administrations. If that doesn’t feel pertinent enough, one poster asks whether government inaction on AIDS is tantamount to civil war.
The idea that art is not enough harks back to Bertolt Brecht’s notion that just getting enjoyment or stimulation from art misses the point. It was vital to Brecht that art reach its audience and inspire them to act. While it’s true that ACT UP will forever be famous for its activist interventions, I can’t imagine ACT UP without the works of Gran Fury. Their art clearly met that Brechtian imperative.
This exquisite book is a striking homage to the fiery output of Gran Fury, a body of work infused with righteous rage. It’s also a reminder of the resilience and brains the queer community can summon when in crisis. We’re going to need to tap into that energy again, and fast.
Matthew Hays, co-editor (with Tom Waugh) of the Queer Film Classics book series, teaches film studies at Marianopolis College and Concordia University.
