The Chicago History Museum’s LGBTQ Series Draws Inspiration from Chicago Exhibitions

Discover how art was used to speak out about the AIDS pandemic, advocate for its victims and critique public response to this health crisis at the Chicago History Museum’s Out at CHM program, “Art, AIDS, and Activism in Chicago.”

The program takes place on Friday, March 3, 2017, at the Chicago History Museum. The panel discussion begins at 6:30 p.m. and includes a reception at 5:30 p.m.

The panel will draw on two exhibitions on view in Chicago—“ArtAIDSAmerica,” at the Alphawood Gallery and “One day this kid will get larger,” at the DePaul Art Museum—to examine artists who participated as activists during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 90s and contemporary artists responding to that time and ongoing HIV health issues.

Joseph Varisco, founder of “Queer, Ill, and Okay” and Project Coordinator at the Alphawood Foundation, moderates the panel to include:

• John Neff, Main presenter and panelist, artist and lecturer at SAIC
• Mary Patten, SAIC professor, artist, activist, and a founder of ACT-UP/Chicago
• Oli Rodriguez, artist and founder of the Papi Project
• Alisa Swindell, Gallery 400 Curatorial Assistant, activist, and Ph.D. candidate in art history at University of Illinois at Chicago

This is the second program in the Out at CHM 2017 series. The final program “From New Town to Boystown to Lake View” will take place on Thursday, May 18, 2017, at the Center on Halsted.

Admission to each program is $20 for the general public and $15 for Museum members and students. To purchase tickets and for program and panelists updates visit chicagohistory.org/outatchm.

Major support for Out at CHM comes from the Exelon Corporation with additional support from Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett and the Richard L. Ohlhausen Education Fund.

ABOUT THE CHICAGO HISTORY MUSEUM

The Chicago History Museum is situated on ancestral homelands of the Potawatomi people, who cared for the land until forced out by non-Native settlers. Established in 1856, the Museum is now at 1601 N. Clark Street in Lincoln Park, its third location. As a major museum and research center for Chicago and U.S. history, the Chicago History Museum strives to be a destination for learning, inspiration and civic engagement. Through dynamic exhibitions, tours, publications, special events and programming, the Museum connects people to Chicago’s history and to each other. To share Chicago stories, the Museum collects and preserves millions of artifacts, documents, images and other items that are relevant to the city’s history. The Museum gratefully acknowledges the support of the Chicago Park District on behalf of the people of Chicago.