AT THE ALLEN / SPRING 2024 / 7 In this exhibition, adjacent presentations concerning Christianity and HIV/AIDS may be experienced individually and in conversation with one another. Contemporary artists have adopted Christian motifs in a wide range of contexts explored here, from civil rights to global trade. Amid the HIV/AIDS outbreak in the 1980s, artists drew upon the emotional impact and recognizability of Christian imagery to promote awareness of the crisis and cope with grief in its wake. The overlap in this Venn diagram is a selection of works by queer Christian artists whose religious backgrounds and exposure to the ravages of AIDS provided a unique set of tools to express both resilience and loss. Although each work confronts unique concerns, they also respond to shared themes, including judgment, shame, guilt, suffering, martyrdom, plague, death, redemption, resurrection, salvation through blood, and the sacredness of wounded bodies. AIDS is a topic broader andmore global than the mostly gay-male and U.S.-based roster presented here. Yet these artists offered some of the most prominent responses to the damaging introduction of AIDS as a “gay cancer.” Likewise, the artists who make use of Christian narratives are not all Christian and do not speak on behalf of the Church. Taken together, however, these works offer enduringmodels for turning pain and anger into beauty. ON VIEW / ELLEN JOHNSON GALLERY / JAN 20–DEC 15, 2024 CONTINUED
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