LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMPTalk: An Artist for Our Times |
by Bill Sievert |
"The AIDS virus is just a virus. It has no personal agenda against me. It's just another creature in God's creation." So said visionary painter Frank Moore, an artist who made his illness a focal point of his life's work, in an interview with the New York Academy of Sciences shortly before his death this past April at age 48. When Moore learned he was HIV-positive 17 years ago, the diagnosis actually seemed to bolster his confidence as an artist as well as inspiring him to environmental and social activism. As one member of his family privately says, "He acquired depth as an artist as he met the AIDS crisis head on as he assessed its emotional and physical toll, and plumbed its political and economic dimensions." An admitted "flower child" during his youth in the Adirondacks in the 1960s, Moore was always fascinated by the natural world and how modern science could alternatively support it and destroy it. While many artists perceive science and technology to be enemies of art, Moore decided to explore and even embrace them. "My experience with science especially pharmaceutical science has been very positive," he told the Academy of Sciences. "Let's face it, genetically engineered formulations have kept me alive." And his long personal and public battle to stop the "demonizing" of AIDS inspired an often disturbing but always optimistic artistic vision. A surrealist grounded in the brushstrokes of reality, Moore described his work as "providing a visual forum for people to reflect on what their relationship with nature is.... I believe you cannot have healthy people in an unhealthy environment and you can't have a healthy environment where unhealthy greedy, exploitative people predominate." Many of his paintings reflect some kind of battle between nature and its spoilers. A dramatic series set at Niagara Falls stems from a trip Moore took there. Submerged in mist during a tour-boat ride, he wondered about the water's makeup. He did some research and found that the EPA was monitoring more than 350 harmful chemicals in the river. In his paintings Niagara (1994 and 1995), he included alchemical symbols to represent mercury and other pollutants that have corrupted the water. In the related Maid of the Mist (1994-95), he depicted raingear-clad tourists on the boat as monks ministering the last rites at a sacred site. Moore's AIDS-themed pieces usually include a note of hopefulness. In Freedom to Share (1994), a mother and father have gathered their multi-racial family for a Thanksgiving feast; the turkey is made entirely of pills with twin syringes of "AIDS cocktails" in the place of the drumsticks. The children eagerly await their portion of the bird's bounty. And, in Beacon (2001)," Moore shows us a young man in a hospital bed, drifting in a turbulent electric-blue sea. As unsettling as the image is, there are lifelines: an octopus tentacle offering a syringe and a human hand rising up with a bottle of pills. Another of his potent AIDS-related works evolved from a walk in the woods he took near his rural country home outside of Binghamton, NY. Moore noticed plants growing from a rotting, fallen tree. In his painting, Release (1999), the tree becomes an outstretched arm covered with bloody sores and lesions, but sprouting from them are new plant life and colorful butterflies. The image reveals a microcosm of regeneration, life rising from death. While Moore's distinctive style is well known in New York where his work hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney, his name is not yet a household word outside of his home state. But one of his creations has become internationally renowned. In 1991, working with other artists in the advocacy group Visual AIDS, Moore came up with a concept to advance the cause. "My neighbors had a daughter in the Gulf War, and they tied a yellow ribbon around a tree," he explained in a 1997 newspaper interview. "I took that idea and suggested we turn it into something you could wear." Before long, the AIDS red ribbon had become the world's most recognizable lapel accessory, raising millions of dollars and a great deal of public awareness. In recent years, Moore downplayed his role in the ribbon's development, describing it as a "collaborative effort" with others on the Visual AIDS team. He didn't want his fellow activists to think he was hogging the glory for a project that took a lot of teamwork. Despite occasional health scares from opportunistic infections, a lot of good things were coming together for Frank Moore at the outset of this year. There was a new book, Between Life and Death (Twin Palms Publishing), the first oversized monograph of his work. And he was excited by plans for a major tour of his paintings: Green Thumb in a Dark Eden. The exhibit is currently at the Orlando Museum of Art in Florida (through July 28), before moving to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY. Both the book and the exhibit include many of his paintings since the late 1980s, shortly after he learned of his HIV-positive status. In his artwork, AIDS "came to the fore," he explained, "simply because it was affecting every aspect of my life." That included his political consciousness. He became active in the then-fledgling Visual AIDS group, which raises money to provide direct services to artists living with HIV/AIDS. In addition to his contributions to the Ribbon Project, he helped launch its Archive Project in 1994. The aim has been to provide free photo-documentation of artists' work, to ensure that their cultural legacies would be preserved and to provide a visual record of the AIDS pandemic for future generations. The project also provides grants for materials to low-income artists, offers exhibits and educational programs, and assists with estate planning. Moore also was instrumental in the development of the Estate Project, organized by the Alliance for the Arts in New York to document and preserve works created by people with AIDS in all areas of creative endeavor from music to dance to filmmaking. In his final months, in addition to completing a surge of new paintings, Moore was working on a new philanthropic organization, the Gesso Foundation. Named for the substance painters often use for a base coating on their canvases, the foundation will manage his art and use the proceeds from exhibitions, books and other sales to assist worthwhile causes. According to Frank's sister, Rebecca Moore, who is setting up the foundation, "Frank didn't leave a lot of money, but he wanted it to go where a little money means a lot. He wanted to give grants to organizations working for social justice, AIDS and environmental issues." [The foundation's website, www.gesso.org, will be on line soon.] In many ways, Frank Moore lived his last two decades by an old adage: It's not how much time you have to spend, it's how you spend your time that counts. And the harder he worked, the more confident he became in his ability to connect with people through painting. Shortly before his death, an interviewer asked him if he really believed that art can change anyone's mind. Snapped back Frank Moore, "It's changed mine." For information on the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, go to www.artistswithaids.org. For Visual AIDS, go to http://thebody.com/ visualaids/text.html. Some of Moore's paintings can be seen online at those sites and at www.geneart.org/moore/htm. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 12, No. 07, June 14, 2002. |