The New York Historical Society will revisit the early years of the AIDS epidemic in a new exhibition scheduled to open this summer.
Mixing diaries, clinicians’ notes, photographs, audio and video clips, the society will explore the impact of the epidemic from the first days of rumors of a “gay plague†in 1981 through 1986. The curator Jean S. Ashton said that for many people today, “these years are now a little-understood and nearly forgotten historical period,†even though the advent of the disease “changed paradigms in medicine, society, politics, and culture in ways that are still being felt.â€
The exhibition, “AIDS in New York: The First Five Years,†which runs from June 7 through September 15, will precede an exhibition at the New York Public Library, “Why We Fight: AIDS Activism and American Culture,†scheduled from October 4, 2013 through Apil 6, 2014.
