Virosis is the first museum exhibition in Colombia to feature artworks created in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the country.
The exhibition, whose title comes from Miguel Ángel Rojas's work of the same name (Virosis, 1986), is presented in conjunction with Threads of Blood: Stories and Memories of HIV/AIDS in Colombia by Pablo Bedoya and Carlos Motta. It brings together artworks created by thirty intergenerational Colombian artists and collectives, as well as contextualized testimonies and documents, from the early 1980s to the present, to examine the deep cultural history of the AIDS crisis and contemporary HIV-related issues in the country.
Virosis examines the relationship between artistic production and HIV/AIDS in Colombia, highlighting the voices of historically relevant artists on the subject, such as Miguel Ángel Rojas, Fernando Arias, and Wilson Díaz, in conversation with a younger generation, demonstrating how relevant the topic remains today. It also pays tribute to artists who died from AIDS-related complications, such as Luis Caballero, Lorenzo Jaramillo, and Luis Fernando Zapata.
Virosis is the first museum exhibition in Colombia to feature artworks created in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the country.
The exhibition, whose title comes from Miguel Ángel Rojas's work of the same name (Virosis, 1986), is presented in conjunction with Threads of Blood: Stories and Memories of HIV/AIDS in Colombia by Pablo Bedoya and Carlos Motta. It brings together artworks created by thirty intergenerational Colombian artists and collectives, as well as contextualized testimonies and documents, from the early 1980s to the present, to examine the deep cultural history of the AIDS crisis and contemporary HIV-related issues in the country.
Virosis examines the relationship between artistic production and HIV/AIDS in Colombia, highlighting the voices of historically relevant artists on the subject, such as Miguel Ángel Rojas, Fernando Arias, and Wilson Díaz, in conversation with a younger generation, demonstrating how relevant the topic remains today. It also pays tribute to artists who died from AIDS-related complications, such as Luis Caballero, Lorenzo Jaramillo, and Luis Fernando Zapata.
The exhibition brings together positions that illustrate the diversity of artistic responses to HIV/AIDS, with an explicit focus on works that address themes such as everyday life, sexuality, relationships marked by contagion, isolation, the inevitable passage of time, mortality, the politics of the body, and the representation of the virus. Concepts such as rage and desire, care and healing, spirituality and protection, grief and memory, vulnerability and power, sex, politics, and activism are also addressed.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic is a sociocultural and political phenomenon shaped by beliefs, behaviors, migration patterns, phobias, and gender inequalities. Art has significantly contributed to defining the epidemic and has reminded us that AIDS emerges within complex social worlds—worlds defined by difference, desire, inequality, and violence.
Since the introduction of antiretroviral therapy in the mid-1990s, AIDS has been considered a phenomenon of the past, with little relevance to the lives of our current societies. However, worldwide, deaths from AIDS-related complications remain at nearly one million per year.
Virosis reminds us that, although, thanks to scientific advances, people living with HIV no longer face the same level of mortal risk they once did, they still face cruel and unjust stigma, isolation, and discrimination.
This exhibition is not intended to be a definitive statement on the state of contemporary art in Colombia related to AIDS. However, it serves as a means of unraveling the complex and diverse narratives surrounding the disease, as well as a vehicle for raising awareness, inspiring activism, and using art to address the stigma, discrimination, and isolation experienced by people living with the disease, both in the country and abroad.
