Up Against The Wall: Art, Activism, and the AIDS Poster

Up Against the Wall: Art, Activism, and the AIDS Poster is the traveling version of the first major exhibition devoted to the University of Rochester’s collection of HIV/AIDS-related posters. It illustrates to a broad audience that “AIDS affects everyone” and through the use of language and imagery, shows how messaging and information around HIV is shared to different groups, audiences, and people throughout the world. The use of empathy, fear, science, statistics, sexuality, style, hygiene, culture, and humor, among other mechanisms, illustrate the broad range of creative communication tools mobilized through the medium of the AIDS poster.   

Donated by collector, physician, and medical historian, Dr. Edward C. Atwater, and part of the collections of the University of Rochester Libraries’ Department of Rare Book, Special Collections, and Preservation, these posters document the broad range of efforts to educate and inform people around the world about this devastating disease.  The collection, the largest of its kind in the world, includes over 8000 posters from 130 countries in over 75 languages, and dates from 1982 to the present. 

Up Against the Wall was originally exhibited at the University of Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery from March 6, to June 19, 2022 and included a range of public programs that explored the intersection of art and public health. IA&A is extremely pleased to bring this exhibition and its artworks to our partners. Up Against the Wall: Art, Activism, and the AIDS Poster will tour for four years, until early 2030 and is now open for bookings.

Please contact TravelingExhibitions@ArtsandArtists.org for more information.