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Museums, art galleries observe impact of AIDS on art community

AIDS has claimed the lives of many visual and performing artists. For 19 years, art galleries and museums across the country have marked December 1 as “A Day Without Art” to highlight the disease’s impact on society. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez has more on today’s observance.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez: For the first “A Day Without Art,” New York painter Keith Haring finished a mural at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design. Haring died a year later of complications from AIDS. He was 31 years old.

There’s a long list of artists in their prime who’ve died from the disease, and this day honors them, says Rainer Mack, the head of education at the Getty Villa in Malibu.

Rainer Mack: This is our 19th year of observing Day Without Art, so it’s something that we certainly think important, and that we have come to think of as a tradition and that we like to do. This is a little bit of an odd year because December 1 falls on a Monday and the Getty Center is closed.

Guzman-Lopez: So are most other museums and galleries. The Getty Villa is open, and it’s observing A Day Without Art by shrouding in black cloth an ancient Greek marble sculpture called “Harp Player.”

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• December 1, 2008 2:13 PM
• Categories: Arts