Picture an epidemic: contemporary culture and HIV

While acknowledging the life-saving importance of ART that was introduced on a mass scale in high-income countries in the late 1990s, the image also honours the practices of care undertaken by people living with HIV. The challenges of adequately addressing the past and present realities of HIV were vividly illustrated by the reception of the exhibition Art AIDS America, which opened in the USA at the Tacoma Art Museum in 2015 after 10 years of careful research and planning. When the exhibition went out on national tour it was robustly revised and expanded to address these concerns: the final version in Chicago comprised 150 artworks and a comprehensive public programme that was located not only within the gallery but also in spaces throughout the city that included free HIV testing. Set in 1985, the film explores the early experimental stages of ART development in clinical trials, but ethical questions related to the structure of drug trials and the commodification of human life are set aside in favour of a narrative that charts Woodroof's redemptive personal journey from self-interested homophobe to reluctant ally of the disenfranchised LGBT community who constitute the majority members of the club.