Muses from Chaos and Ash: AIDS, Artists, and Art

In a mosaic of interviews with 24 artistically creative people who are HIV-positive, have AIDS or have subsequently died from the disease, freelance journalist Vaucher maps uncharted emotional territory. Interviewees include painters Keith Haring and David Wojnarowicz, writers Larry Kramer and Paul Monette, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, novelists Edmund White and Bo Huston and filmmaker Marlon Riggs, along with other poets, playwrights, performers, designers and choreographers. For many, HIV infection served to heighten their anger and despair, unlock their spirituality and fuel their creativity, and often push them to greater artistic experimentation and freedom. Vaucher maintains that the recent explosion of visceral, content-driven art can be attributed to the AIDS crisis, which has shaken the art world's collective psyche. These intensely personal interviews bear eloquent testimony to that process. (Mar.)