20th September 2024
Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani de Palma presents the exhibition ’AIDS. A Silenced History in the Balearic Scene’ which, coinciding with the Nit de l’Art week organised by the ArtPalma Association of Galleries, was inaugurated to the public on Friday 20th September 2024.
‘AIDS. A Silenced History in the Balearic Scene’ is a group exhibition, curated by Jesús Alcaide, which chronologically covers the impact of the syndrome on the Balearic Islands, from 1981, when the first documented case in Spain appeared, to the present day. It is a pioneering investigation in the Balearic context that accesses AIDS and HIV from two places, artistic expression and activism.
Through an extensive compilation of documentation, photographs, audiovisual material, objects, pieces and artistic projects, the exhibition brings together historical milestones in the islands, with obligatory national and international references, such as the death of Rock Hudson, Pepe Espaliu’s Carrying project, the birth of associations such as Alas or Siloé, among others, giving equal relevance to the work of art and the document, in the same way that AIDS broke with social classes.
The artists participating are Costus, Pepe Espaliú, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pepe Miralles, Gori Mora, Joan Morey, Ocaña, Andrés Senra, Toni Socías Cladera, The Carrying Society and Agustí Villaronga.
Jesús Alcaide, curator of the exhibition, comments that ‘It is about making visible and staging a story that until now had been silenced both in the Balearic and national context, a story made of fragments in which not only the cultural manifestations that put images to the narrative about AIDS are present but also the indispensable role that associations such as Alas or Siloé, among others, have had in ending the stigma and turning what was once a social disease into a sexual health issue’.
The exhibition ‘AIDS. A Silenced History in the Balearic Scene’ can be visited in the Exhibition Hall B from 21 September until 12 January 2025.