NOT ENOUGH…
Wednesday, November 14, 2012 at 8:22PM “ART IS NOT enough” was one of the phrases coined for AIDS where so many responses to the disease were art. The phrase meant art was too pretty even when it was about ugly things. It didn’t stop the virus or arrest it or even cut the price of AZT. Art might have raised awareness but awareness was not enough. I’ve been thinking much about this because Marlene McCarty – one of the artists who came up with the phrase who was a member of the collective Gran Fury, ACT UP’s advertising and propaganda wing – lost two-thirds of her work in Hurricane Sandy this week. She’s hardly the only artist who has, and I can barely imagine the pain, only I can because I’ve seen the pictures and know her work and the photos she emailed of shuffling through a flooded basement clutching soggy tubes containing her mural sized drawings are nearly too much to bear.