A Conversation with Ian Bradley-Perrin and Avram Finkelstein

Join curator Ian Bradley-Perrin in conversation with artist and activist Avram Finkelstein for an evening discussion at Poster House in conjunction with Love & Fury: New York’s Fight Against AIDS.

Drawing on Finkelstein’s decades-long practice at the intersection of design, politics, and collective action, and Bradley-Perrin’s curatorial and historical research, the conversation will explore the power of posters as tools of activism, memory, and cultural change. Together, they will reflect on how graphic design has shaped public understanding of HIV/AIDS, mobilized communities, and continues to resonate today. This wide-ranging discussion will offer insight into the creative, political, and historical contexts behind the exhibition, and the enduring role of visual culture in moments of crisis and resistance.

Avram Finkelstein is an artist, writer, and a founding member of the Silence=Death and Gran Fury collectives. He is the recipient of a 2024 Creative Capital Grant and a 2023 Pollock-Krasner Grant. His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA); the Whitney Museum; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Brooklyn Museum; MoMA PS1; David Zwirner gallery; The Shed; the Museum of the City of New York;  Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; and is held in the permanent collections of MoMA; the Whitney; the New Museum; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Brooklyn Museum; the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery; and the Victoria and Albert Museum. He is featured in the Oral History Program of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, and his book After Silence: A History of AIDS through Its Images (University of California Press) was nominated for the International Center of Photography’s 2018 Infinity Award in Critical Writing and Research. He has written for BOMB, frieze, OnCurating, and Foam, been interviewed by the New York Times, frieze, Artforum, Interview, and NPR, and spoken at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and NYU.

Ian Bradley-Perrin is a historian of HIV/AIDS in the United States whose work bridges scholarship, activism, and curation. He contributed to Up Against the Wall: Art, Activism, and the AIDS Poster at the Memorial Art Gallery and developed his dissertation, “A Consumer’s Epidemic: People with AIDS and the Politics of Consumption,” on the first five years of the AIDS response by People with AIDS. He has worked at AIDS advocacy organizations in Canada and the United States and is currently a Senior Scientist supporting HIV treatment and prevention clinical research. Bradley-Perrin earned his PhD in Sociomedical Sciences and History from Columbia University and has lived with HIV for over 15 years. His scholarship and lived experience inform his approach to curating and interpreting the history of AIDS.

Accessibility Note: Masks and clear masks are available free of charge at the museum. Assistive listening devices and stools are available. ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or a CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) is also available upon request. Please contact access@posterhouse.org or (914) 295-2387 to request interpretation services and to address any other accessibility needs. For other event-related questions, please contact info@posterhouse.org.