AIDS Is Everyday / June

AIDS is an everyday experience. The dates on this calendar all relate to the AIDS crisis. Some are globally known; others are drawn from personal experiences.

This online calendar is produced in partnership with Visual AIDS and is an extension of the exhibition “EVERYDAY,” which was curated by Jean Carlomusto, Alexandra Juhasz and Hugh Ryan in 2016. The exhibition and accompanying print calendar explored the AIDS crisis—historically and currently—through the lens of art and ephemera that examines and evidences daily experiences and practices in response to HIV/AIDS. Artists featured in the “EVERYDAY” exhibition were invited to submit as many dates to the calendar as they desired.

We invite you to reflect upon these dates, and this artwork, in dialogue with one another. We also encourage you to submit dates of your own by clicking here. Submissions may include the date of your diagnosis, the date of the loss of a loved one to AIDS-related illness or a significant milestone in your life with HIV/AIDS.

New submissions will be continually added to the calendar because AIDS is not over.

JUNE 1

ACT UP joins other national activist groups for its first protest at the White House. The police wear rubber gloves while arresting protesters. (1987)

Nkosi Johnson, a South African child born with HIV who had a powerful impact on the public perception of AIDS and was the keynote speaker at the 13th International AIDS Conference, dies of AIDS-related complications at age 12. (2001)

NOT OVER exhibition presented by Visual AIDS opens at La MaMa Galleria. (2013)

JUNE 2

Visual AIDS partners with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS to launch the Red Ribbon at the 45th Annual Tony Awards. (1991)

Life Ball, Vienna’s biggest charity event to support people living with HIV/AIDS, commemorates its 25th anniversary. (2018)

POZ launches POZ at Home, a live event that brings together community members to discuss HIV-related topics. The first episode features a conversation with Mark S. King, Venita Ray and Charles Sanchez about how they are coping during the coronavirus pandemic while living with HIV. (2020)

JUNE 2–5

HIV Is Not a Crime, the national conference devoted to tackling HIV criminalization in the states, debuts in Grinnell, Iowa. (2014)

JUNE 3

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor Test, which measures viral load, or the amount of HIV in the blood. (1996)

To Believe exhibition presented by Visual AIDS opens at La MaMa Galleria. (2010)

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announces funding for 11 condom designs with grants of $100,000 each to improve user experience. The grants are funded through its Grand Challenges Explorations initiative, which supports innovative ideas to tackle key global health and development problems. (2014)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves a generic formulation of Truvada (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine). (2017)

JUNE 3–9

Cyclists ride 545 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles as part of AIDS/LifeCycle (formerly the California AIDS Ride) to raise funds for HIV/AIDS services at the Los Angeles LGBT Center and San Francisco AIDS Foundation. The first ride took place 25 years ago. (2019)

JUNE 4

Tainted Love exhibition presented by Visual AIDS opens at La MaMa Galleria. (2009)

Grahame Perry exhibits his Every AIDS Obituary (2014) and Long-Term Survivor Project. (2015)

ACT UP demonstrates at the Fifth International Conference on AIDS in Montreal and calls for parallel track drug testing in AIDS treatment research. (1989)

JUNE 5

HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports the first cases of a rare pneumonia—later determined to be AIDS related—in young gay men in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. (1981)

Actor Larry Kert, who played Tony in the original Broadway production of West Side Story, dies of AIDS-related complications at age 60. (1991)

Barton Lidicé Beneš receives inaugural Visual AIDS Vanguard Award. (2006)

The National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) releases RISE Proud: Combating HIV Among Black Gay and Bisexual Men, an action plan to mitigate the impact of HIV on Black gay and bisexual men. (2013)

Greater Than AIDS and #endHIV launch #HIVBeats, an upbeat and informative video series that aims to educate younger audiences about advances in HIV prevention, testing and treatment. Produced in collaboration with YouTube, the series features influencers Todrick Hall, Bob the Drag Queen, Davey Wavey, Zackary Drucker, Catrific and Amber’s Closet. (2016)

AIDS.gov, the U.S. government’s main source of information about HIV and AIDS, changes its name to HIV.gov. (2017)

Sir Elton John announces the launch of The Rocket Fund, a three-year, $125 million initiative to accelerate the end of AIDS. (2023)

JUNE 6

United in Anger: A History of ACT UP, a documentary film about the birth and life of the AIDS activist movement told from the perspective of the people in the trenches fighting the epidemic, is released. (2012)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relaunches “Let’s Stop HIV Together,” a campaign aimed at reducing stigma and raising HIV awareness. (2018)

JUNE 7

New York Court of Appeals vacates conviction of aggravated assault for David Plunkett, an HIV-positive man who bit a police officer. (2012)

JUNE 8

National Caribbean American HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

International sex workers including Carol Leigh, Andrew Hunter, Danny Cockerline and others protest during the AIDS conference in Montreal. (1989)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves a generic formulation of Gilead Sciences’ antiretroviral Truvada (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine). (2017)

JUNE 9

Wigstock: The Movie is released. The documentary film focuses on the annual drag music festival held New York City’s East Village in the  1980s and 1990s and features HIV-positive artist, musician and transgender activist Chloe Dzubilo. (1995)

Shawn Decker, who was kicked out of school at age 11 after testing positive for HIV in 1987 (and readmitted soon thereafter), delivers the commencement speech at Waynesboro High School. (2007)

JUNE 10

The U.S. Congress enacts the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Revitalization Act, which gives the Office of AIDS Research primary oversight of all NIH AIDS research. The act also requires NIH and other research agencies to expand involvement of women and minorities in all research. (1993)

Leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) Summit (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) call for the establishment of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, a consortium of government and private-sector groups, to coordinate and accelerate research efforts to find an effective HIV vaccine. (2004)

The revival of Angels in America on Broadway wins three Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Play. (2018)

JUNE 11

Actor Ray Sharkey, known for his role in the 1980 film The Idolmaker, dies of AIDS-related complications at age 40 in Brooklyn. (1993)

PBS NewsHour launches The End of AIDS: Far From Over, a five-part series on the major challenges remaining in the global fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. (2018)

JUNE 12

People living with AIDS (PLWAs) take over the plenary stage at the Second National AIDS Forum in Denver and issue a statement declaring the rights and responsibilities of PLWAs. The statement becomes known as “The Denver Principles.” (1983)

Rapper, performance artist and poet Mykki Blanco discloses their HIV status on Facebook. (2015)

Hunter Reynolds, an artist and activist living with HIV who in his work explored gender, sexuality, HIV and AIDS, politics, mortality and rebirth, dies of cancer at age 62. (2022)

JUNE 13

The Iowa Supreme Court overturns the conviction of Nick Rhoades, who faced a 25-year prison sentence for not disclosing his HIV status during a sexual encounter with another man during which they used a condom. (2014)

JUNE 14

ACT UP joins holistic health advocates for a Health Freedom Rally near the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. (1992)

Activist Hydeia Broadbent is born with HIV. She begins speaking about living with HIV/AIDS at age 6. (1984)

JUNE 15

Where Did The Love Go? campaign launched by Visual AIDS. (2007)

Visual AIDS launches the inaugural set of Play Smart safer sex trading cards in conjunction with the Men’s Sexual Health Project. The cards were created to be an honest and straight-forward approach to promote harm reduction, HIV testing and post-exposure prophylaxis.

JUNE 16

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues the first guidelines for preventing Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), an AIDS-related opportunistic infection and a major cause of illness and death for people living with AIDS. (1989)

Six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, including three who are living with HIV, resign from the organization, citing concerns about how the Trump administration is failing to address the epidemic. (2017)

JUNE 17

CBS broadcasts HIV & AIDS: Awareness & Compassion, an interfaith special on religion and HIV. (2012)

The Pox Lover: An Activist’s Decade in New York and Paris, a personal history of the turbulent 1990s by pioneering American AIDS journalist and lesbian activist Anne-christine d’Adesky, is released. (2017)

JUNE 18

Singer Peter Allen dies of AIDS-related complications. In 2003, Hugh Jackman stars as Allen in the biographical musical The Boy From Oz on Broadway. (1992)

JUNE 19

ACT UP runs a full-page ad in The New York Times that reads “Women Don’t Get AIDS. They Just Die From It” in large type. The smaller text details the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s refusal to expand the definition of AIDS to include diseases that affect women. (1991)

President George W. Bush promotes a $500 million initiative to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. (2002)

South African Kevin Osborne is named the new executive director of the International AIDS Society. He is the first executive director to be living with HIV. (2018)

JUNE 20

AIDS activists demonstrate at the Sixth International Conference on AIDS in San Francisco to highlight the demands of the HIV/AIDS community and to protest the new ban on travel to the United States by people with HIV. (1990)

JUNE 21

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves nevirapine, the first non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor. (1996)

ACT UP’s four-day, 24/7 protest at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital, demands more clinical trials of drugs other than AZT and more PWAs in the trials. (1987)

Broadway Bares, an annual burlesque show and fundraiser for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, celebrates its 25th anniversary. (2015)

JUNE 22

FDA approves tipranavir (TPV), brand name Aptivus. (2005)

JUNE 23

ACT UP meets with homeless people at a Tent City in City Hall Park, built to protest the city’s policy on the homeless, and gives out information on AIDS and distributes condoms. (1988)

Impulse NYC, a group of gay men dedicated to promoting healthier sexual lifestyles, launches “Awareness and the City,” a parody of the opening credits of Sex and the City to promote safer-sex options, such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and condoms. (2018)

JUNE 24

FDA approves stavudine (d4T), brand name Zerit. (1994)

To commemorate its 25th anniversary, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) holds a roundtable and reception in Washington, DC. EGPAF works to advance HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment for women, children and teens. (2014)

Tony Feher, a sculptor living with HIV, dies of cancer-related complications. (2016)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves Gilead Sciences’ fixed-dose combination tablet Descovy (emtricitabine/tenofovir alafenamide). (2016)

JUNE 25

Philosopher Michel Foucault is the first public figure in France to die of AIDS-related complications. Following his death, his partner, Daniel Defert, founds the charity AIDES in his memory. (1984)

The United Nations General Assembly begins its first Special Session on AIDS. (2001)

Desert Migration, a film about a group of long-term survivors living in Palm Springs, California, premieres at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco. (2015)

JUNE 26

U.S. Congress enacts the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities, including people living with HIV/AIDS. (1990)

JUNE 27

National HIV Testing Day

The San Francisco Order of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence publishes Play Fair!, the first pamphlet on safer sex for gay men, and distributes 16,000 copies at the International Lesbian & Gay Freedom Day Parade. (1982)

The NAMES Project displays the first 40 panels of The AIDS Quilt from the Mayor’s balcony at San Francisco City Hall. (1987)

JUNE 28

Visual AIDS exhibitions SIDE X SIDE opens at La MaMa Galleria (2008) and House In Vermont: prvtdncr & bodega vendetta opens at Printed Matter. (2013)

JUNE 29

Actor Robert Drivas dies of AIDS-related complications at age 47in New York City. (1986)

A digital version of POZ becomes available for the first time so readers can view the magazine online just as it appears in print. (2010)

JUNE 30

The World Health Organization certifies Cuba as the first nation to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of both HIV and syphilis. (2015)

Grahame Perry has first IV-drip infusions of Compound (non-FDA approved drug derived from Chinese Cucumber root). (1990)

Ryan White is denied admittance to his middle school after AIDS diagnosis at age 13. (1985)

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About the Artwork

This poster was made for the fierce pussy mobile (1994), and later wheatpasted on the streets of New York City. Using a borrowed art-moving truck, the group wheatpasted the truck with large-scale posters, and enlisted friends to drive the truck around NYC during Pride weekend of Stonewall 25—the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion. The fierce pussy mobile was a do-it-yourself moving billboard. The posters were produced on color Xerox machines after hours at our day jobs at magazines. At the end of the weekend, the truck was taken to the car wash, posters removed and the truck was returned to the art mover.

—fierce pussy

Founded in 1988, Visual AIDS is the only contemporary arts organization fully committed to raising AIDS awareness and creating dialogue around HIV issues today, by producing and presenting visual art projects, exhibitions, public forums and publications—while assisting artists living with HIV/AIDS. Visual AIDS is committed to preserving and honoring the work of artists with HIV/AIDS and the artistic contributions of the AIDS movement.

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