Jeff Wyckoff at 31 Grand

Jeff Wyckoff AIDS altar-piece 1993 36" x 78-90" photosculpture* [installation view]

[opened]

We were in the back room of 31 Grand recently when we spotted Jeff Wyckoff's extraordinary altarpiece, created in 1993.

I could hardly take my eyes off of it.

Thirteen years ago, at the time the piece was completed, the AIDS epidemic might be said to have peaked both in the amount of criminal negligence in the world's response to the crisis and in our general despair of effective treatments. I did not see Wyckoff's sculpture then, but from the perspective of someone who was active in ACT UP at the time and who has lived with the virus for decades, I believe it must be almost as powerful now as it ever was. If this is the case it's certainly about the art, but it's not least due to the fact that for most of those around the world affected by AIDS not much has actually changed.

*
the tinted photo prints are on the kind of paper with a three-dimensional surface used by studios early in the last century to suggest painting