the art of AIDS

Dui Seid

 

An optimist by nature, Dui Seid graduated from New York's Cooper Union and began making art which he describes as ‘spiritual’: immaculately constructed biomorphic sculptures that evoked the process of evolution. His focus changed in the 1980s when a close friend, and then another, became ill and died from AIDS. As Seid remembers, "my friend’s progression towards skeletal emaciation was shocking to me. I would come home from the hospital and start to work. Of course I could not be making art that was like before. It was reflective of the emotional rollercoaster that I was going through. I started making works that were elegiac...they were visual prayers." Making art about AIDS proved a difficult process, however. Dui found himself at odds with AIDS activists who, he felt, wanted to deny the reality of the disease, and also the odd gallery owner and curator who disagreed with his choice of subject matter and materials. Dui speaks about these matters and others in his interview with Paul Sendziuk.

 

Dui Seid's first solo exhibition was held at SOHO Gallery, New York City, in 1986. He has since participated in numerous exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Japan and Europe, including at the Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum, Germany; the Folkwang Museum, Germany; the Whitney Museum of Art at Champion, Connecticut, USA.; the Sagacho Exhibit Space, Tokyo; and at the Musee d’Art Contemporain, Montreal.