Han Nefkens is an atypical, ‘socialising’ collector.

He doesn’t stockpile artworks; he lends them to museums

Out of his fight against AIDS and the aphasia that paralysed him, a totally new man was born

Jesús Ruiz Mantilla

It isn’t difficult to find wandering Dutchman Han Nefkens. One sea is his constant point of departure and return: the Mediterranean. He found his way there, to Nice, when he was 19 and in search of light and streets filled with people. And for years he has berthed at another of its ports, Barcelona, where he is thoroughly and peacefully enjoying his third lifetime…

The thing is that Han Nefkens (Rotterdam, 1954) is, above all, a survivor. A survivor who circumstances have led to become a generous art collector, a literary patron, a promoter of fashion projects, a writer – he never abandoned his vocation as a journalist – and a traveller. A survivor who has been fighting the AIDS virus since 1987 and who fought aphasia and encephalitis, which almost ended his life ten years ago and led him to be forcibly reborn.

‘Reborn’ is an appropriate word in his case. The virus attacked his brain and left him completely paralysed. For three months he didn’t know how to eat, he couldn’t walk or talk, he didn’t recognise anybody or even himself. Nefkens wrote about it in his autobiography Borrowed Time, published by Ediciones Alfabia, in which he recounts this borderline experience that turned him into a different person, alien to himself.

Collecting art and undertaking artistic projects turned out to be his salvation after many personal hardships. It has given meaning to almost everything. But he doesn’t collect art in order to stockpile works; he does it in order to share. “Art fascinated me, so I asked a friend who is the director of an art museum what I could do to contribute in an original way. I wanted to set up effective ties between creators and the public,” says Nefkens at the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, where he has donated a work by Pipilotti Rist. “‘If you entrust it to us, I will accept it on deposit,’ he told me.” That was the start of Nefkens’ ‘socialising’ arts patronage. “Collecting is a myth, like planting a tree in your garden and believing that it is yours. It will always belong to the natural order of life, just as an artistic creation belongs to the society that it addresses.”

His first purchase was also a work by Pipilotti Rist, entitled 54. It was the start of a coherent line of work that has led him to delve into a series of ongoing obsessions: “One thing that they all have in common is a contained power. But I also seek poetics, light, a portrayal of absence or death, because ultimately I think that all works of art are a revolt against death,” says Nefkens. Focusing on these and other traits, Nefkens – who was the recipient of the Best International Collector award at this year’s ARCO – has brought together work by Rist and also Sam Taylor-Wood, Bill Viola, Shirin Neshat, Jeff Wall, Féliz González Torres…

He always wanted to leave the Netherlands. “Just as many people don’t feel at home in their own body, I never felt at home in my country,” he maintains. “I wanted to live in a place with palm trees, sunlight and packed streets. I was after a more open atmosphere, more colour.” This desire to run away led him to the south of France first, like Van Gogh, and then to the United States and Mexico, where he found the love of his life, Felipe. And then, to Barcelona.

Mexico buffeted and caressed him in equal parts with its revelry, its tragedies and its gaudy colours. There he lived life to the full. And there, one awful day, without being quite sure of what he was being told, he was diagnosed with AIDS: “It was November 19th, 1987, at seven in the afternoon…. They gave me the paper and I opened it in the middle of the street. It said ‘positive’; I was so confused I wasn’t even sure whether that was a good or a bad thing.”

There are some shocks that you never forget. Specially back then, when the news implied death: “I was very lucky that medication kept me alive until 1996, and then drugs appeared that turned it into a chronic illness, into part of you.”

It was a time of fear, ignorance and lack of understanding. A time of complete uncertainty and of hoping for the miracle. “Many people who contracted the virus with me didn’t live to tell the tale. I was forced to get used to living with very uncomfortable questions: Will I die? Will I get fired? It obviously became a lot easier when I felt I the support from my work colleagues and family, even though to them the word AIDS was tantamount to death. I was working as a correspondent in Mexico at the time.”

Strong feelings do not fade in your memory. They take root and settle in a corner of your brain and your skin, fiercely anchored to the memories of trauma: “It was like going to the cinema and watching a trailer for a film that hasn’t been released yet, even though you are actually living that film already.”

Over time, Nefkens overcame those obstacles. But even so, others came. A complication and a brain infection finished off one Han. And once again, fortune and the right medication in a hospital in the Netherlands, where they admitted him when he became aware of the symptoms, allowed another Han to be born. “I don’t remember much about the first one; if I made an effort I would be able to remember what he was like, but he doesn’t interest me.”

He prefers to remain with the present one. Much more philosophical, more thoughtful and serene. “Much more conscious of the fragility of human beings, but also – for precisely the same reason – of their strength.” The new Han prefers to cancel commitments in favour of taking his dog for a long walk. The new Han knows that he shouldn’t put off for later anything that he can do now.

Perhaps all of this comes from being forced to redouble his efforts. “It is annoying to have to learn to talk, eat and walk again, but it has its good side.” Such as? “The feeling of doing certain familiar things for the first time. The feeling of being a virgin…”

Perhaps this isn’t a nuance that everybody who has been through the experience picks up on. But it entails an enormous power in itself. To be a virgin when it comes to tasting a Sachertort, a virgin when enjoying a plate of lettuce simply drizzled with oil, vinegar and salt. “Who gets the chance to experience something for the first time a second time?” he asks in Borrowed Time. A virgin when making love. “It was easier than learning to walk again, maybe because I was lying down and there was no reason to fear falling,” says Nefkens. Enviable and paradoxical, aware of having found a pleasurable way to move forward along the sinuous and sometimes unsure task of reconstructing oneself.

He overcame many imbalances. “I was extreme in everything. I had to deal with imbalance and total lack of control. I did whatever I felt like; if I wanted to eat three pieces of cake, I did, and if I wanted to buy six shirts, I bought them. It was hard to learn rationality, normality.” Having lived through these crushing sensations now often makes him feel invincible. If he compares his relationship to both illnesses, he finds that AIDS took over him in an abstract sense, and the setbacks of encephalitis were much more concrete. This has made him brave.

“I don’t know if I feel capable of everything, but I’ll give it a go.” Creating a daring collection, setting up literary grants for young writers – like the one he recently announced with Alfabia Ediciones and Universitat Pompeu i Fabra –, continuing to write… “I can do it, I have the means, so why not throw myself into it?” He answers his own question. The family fortune inherited from an architect and building contractor father allows him to. Although he acts with full awareness that it can all end suddenly, at any moment: “Even so, I will go with the feeling that I have pursued my desires; I will never regret anything that I have done, and I didn’t put anything off for another day.”

Exhibition pulls hiv positive out of their lonely plight

Following a battle with a deadly Aids-related brain infection a Dutch art enthusiast found ‘power in vulnerability’, commissioning and collecting works that deal with the deadly disease, pieces currently on show in Bangkok

In 2001, an Aids-related brain infection forced Han Nefkens to learn to eat, walk, speak, read and write all over again. What could have been a lonely and harrowing path to recovery wasn’t, he says, because of the community he has become a part of as a collector and patron of the arts for more than a decade.

The title of his latest exhibition, currently on show at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, reflects this sentiment and the message he wants to extend to all sufferers of HIV/Aids, “You are Not Alone: For the Same World We Share”.

Mr Nefkens became interested in contemporary art in 1999, knowing he didn’t want just to collect art but to share it. His background was in journalism, though, so he spent a year speaking to artists and gallery owners to find out how best to go about sharing his passion for contemporary art. Eventually he came to an agreement with the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, the Netherlands, so his future collection could be shown there on loan.

A dozen years later, Mr Nefkens has written two autobiographical novels and sees the intensity of his experience reflected in the world of art. He is no longer just a collector, but also a patron of the arts, with a dozen projects on the go, many of them through ArtAids, his initiative to create awareness of HIV/Aids issues through art.

“You are Not Alone” is one of these projects. The works, from artists around the world including five from Thailand, form the beginnings of a conversation on Aids _ a prompt for further discussion. The artists on exhibition are from South Africa, Cyprus, Chile, Lithuania, Spain, Vietnam, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Morocco. Thai artists commissioned for the exhibition include Pratchaya Phinthong, Mute Mute, Ohm Phanpiroj, be>our>friend Studio and Sutee Kunavichayanont. Combined, the works on display introduce accounts of Aids, its impacts and social facets as well as the current realities of HIV infection around the world.

Brunch sat down with the collector and patron to speak about his experiences and how art can change the world.

How do you choose which artworks to buy or commission?

I never think of art in terms of investment because I never plan to sell anything. I do think in terms of value _ is this a piece of art that will remain important in 20 years or in the long term?

Of course, it involves a bit of gut instinct. Every encounter with an artwork is a little like a love affair. The feeling is there all of a sudden, and the question comes _ do you want to continue with it? I also look at the artist’s overall work. If it’s a good piece by a generally mediocre artist, I’m not interested. When I was still collecting rather than commissioning, I also wanted to see if it fit into the whole of my collection. Some works are very beautiful but wouldn’t go with the feel of the collection.

Now ArtAids commissions along the theme of HIV/Aids, but I don’t know beforehand how it will turn out.

Are you ever disappointed by the result?

Disappointed is the wrong word, because I never have a fixed idea of what will come out of it. But I’m always surprised.

The artists have often never dealt with the subject of Aids before?

That’s right. Awareness is what we’re trying to achieve. The artist has to start thinking about it, and in a very profound way he or she has to give it form. And then the artwork is born, and then the public has to start thinking about HIV. And then people will read or hear about it, or see it on television.

How did the idea to create this positive cycle of awareness begin?

It was 2004 for the international Aids conference here in Bangkok _ I decided that there should be art at the conference. Already a Thai art commissioner was working on an exhibition so I helped produce it. That was shown at the Queen’s Gallery, and for the first time I could see the impact of art, the power of art. I could see the visitors were looking at the works and started talking about the art and so talking about HIV. That’s how ArtAids was born.

Art can generate awareness of HIV and Aids _ does it also help reduce the stigma?

They are linked. You do have very educated people for whom HIV still has a strong stigma.

And because of the stigma, most people who are positive don’t talk about it. Very few people come out and say, ‘I’m HIV-positive, it’s a medical condition like high cholesterol or any other and it should be treated like that.’

You have the unnecessary burden of shame _ it should have nothing to do with that. People should be aware that the stigma is not only a problem for people with HIV, but because of the social exclusion, those who may be infected don’t get tested. They are the ones who, without knowing, infect other people. So destigmatising is a form of prevention.

Has the situation improved over the years?

There’s still an awful lot to be done. You don’t have the great fear you had 20 years ago, because Aids has become practically invisible in many parts of the world. There’s now more shame than stigma.

What more can be done?

One of the best ways people have of destigmatising anything is when people come forward and say I have cancer, I am gay, or whatever it is. So people get used to it _ particularly when it’s someone they look up to, a sports star or an actor. Then people realise it’s not something they need to be afraid of.

And of course, messages in the media should be positive, but that’s not so easy to control.

You’re very international _ born in Holland, living in Spain, educated in France, speaker of multiple languages. Does that help as a patron of the arts?

For me the world is just one place. I don’t have a sense of borders at all. That’s why I find it fascinating for artists to exhibit in another country; it’s not only a way for the artist to express himself but also for people to learn about other cultures. How often do you see art from South Africa here, or from Lithuania or from Morocco or Chile?

Has your taste in art changed over the years?

It’s still very instinctive. It used to be more aesthetically inclined, more poetic. The works now at the exhibition are often unpoetic.

You once said art is a necessity, not a luxury. For someone homeless and starving _ is it really?

It’s not frivolous. Let’s turn it around. Imagine a world without art. Everything would be gone. You think of how you know about the past, you often have an image of a painting. That’s because art reflects our world. And the eye of the artist, of course, so it gives us an opportunity to see life through another eye. That helps us see the world differently. Through art we know who we are. If that’s gone, we don’t know who we are any more, how to connect _ it would be a great loss.

Art reflects who we are as a world community and as an individual.

From collector to patron, now you also support curators _ is it a natural progression for you?

Yes, it’s also organic. One problem working with curator Hilde Teerlink is we found there weren’t enough curators around to set up the projects we wanted. So we decided to do something so they could help us initially and then develop their own professional careers.

We need more attention to artists from non-Western countries, so we set up an award and have scouts in different parts of the world.

In conflict areas there is a real urgency for artists because they really have something to say.

‘The power of human vulnerability’ as you once said.

Yes, out of vulnerability, strength can come. After the last illness, it took me an awful lot of effort to get better, several years _ an awful lot of discipline and strength just to get functional again. That same strength remains, and is now used to do other things, and all these art projects.

‘You Are Not Alone’ runs until April 18 on the 9th floor, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. Call 02-214-6630 or visit www.bacc.or.th or www.artaids.com.

INTIMATE SPACES emerged from the need to raise awareness and to promote the prevention of AIDS through the use of art as a vehicle for social integration and reaffirmation.

Intimate Spaces is a project based on collective intervention through contemporary art, which approaches intimate spaces as spaces for self-care and caring for others. It seeks to use art as a means of generating an arena for communal reflection around intimacy and related issues: public space and private space, individuality and interpersonal relationships, sexuality, risk, pleasure, etc.

The idea is to set up a context of trust, and, from there, invite participants to intervene in a creative process that will initially begin with individual reflection and expand into a collective artistic intervention.

The guest artist is Ariadna Rodríguez¹, who will work with the participants, introducing them to artistic processes and offering them the possibility of experiencing creative practices themselves.

This cycle of the Intimate Spaces project is being carried out at a series of Correctional Centres in Catalonia. It is structured into four sessions targeted at heterogeneous groups of 13 to16 inmates, in both men’s and women’s sections, who will experiment, explore and create around the concept of intimacy.

CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES IN CATALONIA

BARCELONA

Centre Penitenciari d’Homes de Barcelona (La Modelo men’s prison), Centre Penitenciari de Dones de Barcelona (Wad Ras women’s prison), Centre Penitenciari de Quatre Camins, Centre Penitenciari de Joves (for inmates aged 18-21, La Roca del Vallès), Centre Penitenciari Brians 1 (men’s section and women’s section, Sant Esteve Sesrovires, Baix Llobregat), Centre Penitenciari Brians 2 (Sant Esteve Sesrovires, Baix Llobregat), Centre Penitenciari Lledoners (Sant Joan de Vilatorrada, Bages)

GIRONA

Centre Penitenciari de Girona, Centre Penitenciari de Figueres 

TARRAGONA

Centre Penitenciari de Tarragona

LLEIDA

Centre Penitenciari de Ponent (men’s section and women’s section) _______________________________________________________

¹Ariadna Rodríguez studied Music (Coservatorio Superior del Liceu, Barcelona, and Berklee College of Music, Boston), Dance and Movement (ballet, contemporary and Body Weather) and Performance Art and Sound Art (School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and IPAH Workshops, Berlin). She has presented her own artistic projects in the United States, France, Germany and Spain. She recently presented her work at CORPOLOGIA (FEM festival, Girona), DIES DE NODES (Nodes de Grácia) and IN-ROMERIA (Raravis and La Poderosa). She will publish work in the next issue of the magazine EFÍMERA and she is the curator of the ‘cicle/sigle de Performance Art’ that has been in progress at Fidel Balaguer Gallery since October 2011

More information: http://ariadnarodriguez.com/PERFORMER.html

MACBA, BARCELONA: 30/05 – 04/06  2012

MARCO, VIGO:  05/06 – 30/06  2012

LA CASA ENCENDIDA, MADRID : 03/07 – 31/07  2012

Synopsis Rodrigo is a young deaf man from Recife, in northeastern Brazil, who finds himself facing the challenge of raising his four-year old daughter alone after his wife recently walked out on him. He lives with his mother and has a job installing car stereos in a small dealership on the city outskirts. Despite his deafness, sound manages to penetrate into his life and he harnesses its vibrations, felling it and letting it pulse through his veins.

Artist’s Statement When the ArtAids foundation presented me with the challenge of finding a way to incorporate my artistic research into discussions around HIV and AIDS, the first idea that came to me was to try to establish a representation of reality that is often lost in the imagery of prevention campaigns. I wanted to explore aspects of day-to-day life, ‘normality’, indifference, comings and goings, the banal. As such, the film does not deal with the HIV virus from the perspective of a pathology; rather, it reveals a sensory, bodily and emotional experience that interacts with people, time and space.

The film is experimental in its approach, incorporating hybrid techniques that mix ‘reality’/ documentary with narrative/fiction. The aesthetic choices of fixed camera shots and extended time frames are intended to transmit the sensorial experiences of Rodrigo, who was chosen as the main character in order to weave a web of sound vibrations, noises, silences, doubts and ambiguities.

Rodrigo’s day-to-day life serves as a laboratory for small-scale performances in which we observe the body in movement, enacting unique gestures in time. His body is strong, yet it is also fragile. It subtly seduces us, invites us to come closer, sketching phonemes and ideograms in the air, displacing the senses and interrupting the silence. Rodrigo’s daily comings and goings draw us into a journey made up of ordinary experiences in which incommunicability and diversity are reinforced by means of their alterity. Through the glimpses of Rodrigo’s world represented in this film, ties are established between the multiple and fluid identities of his character and the various layers that his being traverses on his journey.

By Gabriel Mascaro

17 March 2012 – 20 May 2012

“When you share, you are not alone”. Han Nefkens Founder and President of the ArtAids Foundation.

In You are not alone, 14 artists from around the world help to fight stigmatisation by reappraising the causes, consequences and current context of Aids as well as the ways of fighting it.

The ArtAids Foundation has produced works specifically designed for the exhibition by eleven  internationally acclaimed artists whose work does not generally approach the subject of Aids.The selected artists are: Deimantas Narkevicius (Lithuania), Latifa Echakhck (Morocco), Danh Vo (Vietnam), Christodoulos Panayiotou (Cyprus), Lorena Zilleruelo (Chile),  Elmgreen & Dragset (Denmark and Norway), Be Our Friend Studio (Thailand), Ohm Phanpiroj (Thailand) and  Pratchaya Phinthong (Thailand), Otto Berchem (United States- the Netherland).

The new works are presented with a selection of pieces recently incorporated in the ArtAids collection by David Goldblatt (South Africa), Sutee Junavichayanont (Thailand), and Juul Hondius (the Netherlands).

The work of Matthew Darbyshire (United Kingdom), intended to provide a space for reflection about Aids, is presented at the end of the exhibition. A view of the illness by Pepe Espaliú, a Spanish artist who died from Aids in 1993, appears by way of an introduction.

17-II-2012

Han Nefkens

“A collection is a private passion that benefits the public”

“The lack of Spanish artists in my collection reflects a similar lack on the international scene: they were rare at the fairs and galleries that I frequented as a buyer.”

He is one of Europe’s foremost collectors, he collaborates with the Museum Boijmans in Rotterdam in the production of new works, and he was recently honoured with two major Spanish art collecting prizes, the ARCO and GAC Catalan galleries’ awards. For Han Nefkens, patronage is equivalent to commitment.

He has not purchased a single artwork since 2006, but he is nonetheless one of Europe’s most committed collectors. Han Nefkens was born in Rotterdam in 1954, but lived and worked all over the world before arriving in Spain, more specifically in Barcelona. Invited by Foto Colectania Foundation to show his work in the Catalan capital, Nefkens ended up making the city his home. His collection has continued to increase substantially in the years that followed, but only through specific works that he himself finances. Nefkens has gone one step further in private art collecting.

From the outset, Nefkens’ modus operandi differed from that of other art collectors. One day, as he was visiting a Pipilotti Rist exhibition during a 1999 trip to Paris, he decided. “I want to be part of this world of art,” he told himself. But he did not want his role to be that of a buyer who wants to decorate his living room, and he was even less interested in buying works and keeping them in storage. Nefkens wanted to share the art. “I mulled over how to do it for a year, until I met the then-director of the Centraal Museum at Utrecht, Sjarel Ex. I shared my concerns with him and we came to an agreement that my purchases would go directly into this museum in The Netherlands as long-term loans. And from there, similar collaborations developed with other art centres.” So that’s exactly what happened with his first purchases: Bill Viola, Tony Oursler and, of course, Pipilotti Rist.

BUYING FOR MUSEUMS

–Is this approach to buying reflected in the H+F Collection?

–Yes, of course. I own 450 works by 87 artists, and I’ve bought more than one work by almost all of them, sometimes from different periods to show the way they evolve, sometimes whole series of photographs. Right from the start I wanted to buy artworks without worrying about their size. I bought sculptures and installations, huge pieces, always with the museum in mind.

But Nefkens, who is incidentally also a writer, could not stop there. His restless and committed nature led him to the next level. “Once I’d spent some time collaborating with museums, I realised that one of the challenges that artists face is the lack of funding to produce their works. Over the past five years, I’ve commissioned and produced specific works, sometimes at the suggestion of a museum, other times in collaboration with one.” And this has also given rise to the pieces that belong to his two foundations, ArtAids and H+F.

“The aim of the ArtAids Foundation is to raise public awareness of AIDS and to destigmatise it. I am HIV positive, and it’s important to me. These artworks are inspired by HIV, but almost always metaphorically. They’re related to big ideas such as isolation, for example, but they’re also about the joy of living,” he explains.

So he soon began to prioritise this way of working with artists and museums. “I like commissioning as a working method – it’s a vote of confidence in the artist. It leads to a whole new work being created for a particular space, a museum. The artist is happy to have produced a new piece, the museum is happy to have a new, specific work, and I’m happy because I’ve been able to accompany the whole creative process. I feel like a midwife, assisting at the birth.”

–Did you always realise that your collection was more than just a private matter?

–A collection is a private passion that benefits the public. Art is a reflection of the world, made for the world. And the more people who see it, the better.

–Have you ever considered running your own exhibition space?

–Never. I like working with different institutions. I collaborate with the Museum Boijmans in The Netherlands, and in Barcelona I work with the Miró Foundation – I produced one of the works for its Pipilotti Rist exhibition – and with MACBA, where we’ve just set up this new 50,000 prize for the production of a new work by a non-Western artist.

MUCH MORE THAN EUROPE

And this leads us to another of Nefkens’ interests: so-called “peripheral” art makes up a significant part of his collection. Some of his favourites include works by Zwelethu Mthethwa, Rinko Kawauchi and Manit Sriwanichpoom, artists from South Africa, Japan and Thailand, respectively. “The world is much more than Europe and the USA, there are some very interesting artists in places that I had never heard of. I go out of my way to get to know these artists, I’ve lived in many countries and I travel a lot, I’m cosmopolitan, and this has shaped my understanding of art” says Nefkens, who has lived in London, the United States, France and Mexico and spent long periods in Thailand. He settled in Barcelona because he loves the Mediterranean lifestyle, “the people on the streets, the long Sunday lunches, the blue sky. Barcelona’s art scene is quite active, and they’ve welcomed me with open arms.”

–Even so, Carmela García and Prudencio Irazábal are the only two Spanish artists in your collection. Does this mean you aren’t interested in Spanish art?

–It actually reflects the lack of Spanish artists on the international scene. Between 2001 and 2006 I was buying art at the big fairs in Basel, London and New York, and at the major galleries, and there are not many Spanish artists there. But this doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in Spanish art. In fact, we collaborated with several Spanish artists for the first ArtAids exhibition in Barcelona in 2009.

–Your collection suggests that you are very loyal to a relatively small group of artists.

–It’s important to follow artists. Commissioning a work means making a commitment to the artist and to his or her work. And this endures in time, there’s no reason why it should only happen once.

– What makes a good collection?

–A good collection should be a reflection of the collector. Seeing the works should give you a sense of the buyer’s personality, of the person who is behind it. A series of 100 works by 100 different artists is a dispersed collection, and the same goes for generic collections that bring many fashionable artists together but don’t say anything about the collector.

–Has art changed you?

–Absolutely. Art isn’t just a way of seeing the world; it’s also a way of showing the world who I am. Thanks to art, I actively form part of the world.

PAULA ACHIAGA

ARCO, Madrid 15-02-2012

The Award recognises Han Nefkens’ commitment and international focus in his support for contemporary art.

BARCELONA

“YOU ARE NOT ALONE”

MIRÓ FOUNDATION

“You Are Not Alone” is a group exhibition organized by ArtAids, a private foundation that invites leading international artists to produce work dealing with AIDS. In Barcelona, the show consisted of work by 15 artists (almost all based in Europe) and included nine new commissions, with notable contributions from Elmgreen & Dragset, Deimantas Narkeviˇcius, the young Chilean artist Lorena Zilleruelo, Latifa Echakhch from Morocco and England’s Matthew Darbyshire. Covering the entire ground floor of the museum’s west wing, the exhibition aims to raise awareness of the discrimination faced by HIV/AIDS sufferers today, which it does in a quietly determined way.

In one of the first rooms, Elmgreen & Dragset’s roughly 10-by-4-foot, glaring white wall-hung neon sign reading (and titled) AIDS Is Good Business for Some provided light for New Blood (both 2011), their almost 7-foot-tall polyester resin and marble replica of the Barberini Faun, which was hooked up to an IV bag half-filled with blood. The hospital-like installation unmistakably takes a stab at the pharmaceutical industry for using the AIDS epidemic to unload high-priced medicine.

Zilleruelo’s 21-minute film Pasos (2011) documents the everyday life of a young HIV-positive Chilean woman. The camera follows her daily routine: from afternoon tango lessons to evening walks on the beach. Without melodrama, in an almost distanced way, the protagonist’s voiceover tells of her encounter with the man from whom she would later contract the deadly virus. Unspectacular but deeply moving, the narrative evolves from romantic love story to tragedy.

Though only indirectly addressing the AIDS theme, Narkeviˇcius’s film Restricted Sensation (2011) is an impressive production that tells the story of a theater director in the Soviet Union incarcerated for his homosexuality. In a sequence reminiscent of a scene in a Kafka novel, the main character finds himself abducted in the middle of the night by policemen and charged, without evidence or hope of a trial, for his sexual orientation. Although fictional, the film is based on the Lithuanian artist’s research into the prevalence of homophobia during Soviet times, a condition that persists in many Eastern European countries today.

[“You Are Not Alone” is on view at MARCO Museum, Vigo, Spain, through Jan. 22, 2012.]

—David Ulrichs

MARCO, Vigo, Speaks Out Against the Stigma of AIDS with You Are Not Alone

The ArtAids Foundation presents an exhibition on this illness seen through the eyes of 18 international artists

ÁGATHA DE SANTOS – VIGO

Yesterday, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Vigo (MARCO) embarked on its particular battle against the stigma of AIDS with You Are Not Alone, a group exhibition curated by Hilde Teerlincks and Irene Aristzábal that invites visitors to reflect on the social exclusion faced by AIDS sufferers, through the gaze of 18 international artists who don’t usually work on the subject of AIDS. Co-produced by MARCO, the ArtAids Foundation and the Fundació Miró, and sponsored by Banco Sabadell, You Are Not Alone aims to provoke visitor responses to AIDS and to the exhibition itself, and to contribute to shaping society’s perception of the illness.

“Art transmits ideas and feelings, in relation to the virus too. We’ve seen it happen in other exhibitions. People wonder: What is the artist trying to tell me? What does this work have to do with AIDS? This is what the Foundation tries to do,” explained its president Han Nefkens, a Dutch writer, collector and patron who has previously collaborated with MARCO in The Suspended Moment, a 2006 exhibition in which he presented a selection of works from his private collection. The president of ArtAids, which supports research geared towards developing a vaccine in Spain and sponsors a project that provides support for AIDS sufferers in Thailand, also drew attention to the fact that millions of people in the world still don’t have access to AIDS treatment, a situation that he called “unacceptable.”

Each artist contributes his or her particular gaze on AIDS, its causes and consequences, and the context of the virus today, although the curator Hilde Teerlincks pointed out that they all tackle issues such as stigma and death. “The exhibition also pays homage to the artist Pepe Espaliú who died of AIDS in the nineties, by presenting his videos, which we believed should be part of this show,” she said.

Aside from Espaliú, the artists who have created the 35 works in You Are Not Alone, which will be open until 22 January 2012, are Otto Berchem, Matthew Darbyshire, Latifa Echakhch, Elmgreen & Dragset, Leandro Erlich, David Goldblatt, Juul Hondius, Sutee Kunavichayanont, Deimantas Narkevicius, Shirin Neshat, Lucy + Jorge Orta, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Shirana Shahbazi, Danh Vo, Lawrence Weiner and Lorena Zilleruelo.

Han Nefkens (first on the right) shows one of the artworks to the mayor of Vigo, Abel Caballero, accompanied by the director of the Banco Sabadell Foundation, Miguel Molins, and the director of MARCO, Iñaki Martínez Antelo. // J. de Arcos