July 4, 1989
Tuesday, 3:45 pm

Since last night's ACT UP meeting was the day before a holiday everyone thought they could push their agendas through easily.

First, Mark Harrington explained his quotes in Newsday and his position on Compound Q. I agree with him that we can't blindly accept any kind of testing but need to push for testing by a variety of sources. Larry Kramer then got up to lambast Mark for attacking the underground tests in San Francisco. Then everybody got into the act and the question was left unresolved until next week.

Next Jason Heffner gave his report and suggested we develop a policy a about helping members in need. He used Ray Navarro and his lover, who are stuck in Montreal with medical bills, as an example. Michaelangelo Signiorelli blew up because he and Debbie Levine were going to pass the hat for them. A screaming match ensued and I don't remember if it was resolved or not.

Aldo Hernandez had two versions of the letter ART+ is sending out. I read both and gave my thoughts. Then he gave them to Douglas Crimp and he rewrote on paragraph. We didn't resolve when we would send them.

Near the end Gran Fury got up: Michael Nesline, Avram Finklestein, Richard Elovitch and Tom Kalin. They proposed the same idea they put up last summer about their group getting back a percentage of the sales of T-shirts with their images to fund projects. I was dumfounded and Bill Dobbs was appoplexic.

That would mean they would be getting money without having to go through approval, which they usually get anyway. That goes against everything ACT UP stands for. Several people spoke against though not very well because they were caught off-guard. They are so arrogant. Several spoke in favor: Jean Elizabeth, who said she wasn't an artist and thought we should support them all we can because they do such wonderful things; Catherine Saalfield said that's the way art works, artists have to be funded independently (like her?); and Doug Crimp said we owed a lot to Gran Fury for giving ACT UP the look it has. Bill kept telling Aldo and me to speak up but we couldn't't get words out. It was left unresolved until next week but I'll be gone.

Simon came by this morning to look at work but just sort of wondered around. We talked about Gran Fury and what I was going to do in December.

Bill Dobbs called to talk more about Gran Fury. I think we've found a direction for ART+, something I had to be convinced of but now want to do for December at Simon's. The idea is an "Artists Call for AIDS Propaganda," to be collected at Simon's, along with teach-ins and other things. It would be a response to Gran Fury. I'll talk to Simon about it tonight at Mark and Paul's then call the rest of the group tomorrow.

More about Gran Fury. At some point in the winter they changed direction and decided it would be worthwhile to work within the art establishment. They still think they are being covert, or at least Avram does. Tom Kalin is just a careerist. As it stands they have come to represent AIDS activist artists in the art media and so represent me. Yet they are a closed affinity group with no responsibility to ACT UP except when they ask for funds. New they want to sever that connection and be totally autonomous.

As long as their images were gifts no one questioned their appropriateness. To me they are elitist, exclusionary and shouldn't be given a free hand to represent artists or ACT UP. They should not be paid for what they are doing, either, since no one else is. If they have made any inroads into the art world other than Livet Richards and Creative Time they should have found other funding sources. They should also find opposition, which I think would be good for them. The only member who is a visual artist is Tom, in video. Don Moffett is OK but he and the others are basically designers and art directors and there is a disdain on their part for the very potent imagery being created by others. They reinforce the idea that artists who are gay are designers.

They also promote the myth of the art expert who knows more than the average person how to visualize ideas. They have technique and skill but everyone is capable of visualization and they would be of more use using their skills to facilitate that. The "look" of ACT UP created by Avram and the others has become alienating and that doesn't empower people.

Bill thinks we should zap Gran Fury and I'm starting to agree with him.