The AIDS epidemic in the arts

AIDS has inspired sorrowful works of theater, film and art.

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The AIDS Memorial Quilt, as seen from the top of the Washington Monument in 1988, when it was just a year old and already took up much of the Ellipse.Today, the quilt has more than 94,000 names on it, measures 1.3 million square feet and weighs 54 tons, according to AIDSQuilt.com.

Charles Tasnadi / AP

"Rent," based on "La Boheme" and set on the Lower East Side in the age of AIDS, was a long-running hit off and on Broadway. Among the musical's awards was a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for composer and playwright Jonathan Larson, who died of a misdiagnosed aortic dissection in 1996.

Joan Marcus / AP

Actor Rock Hudson died in October 1985, becoming the first major celebrity to die from AIDS-related illnesses. His publicity staff and doctors said he had liver cancer, but he announced he had the virus and was dying in July 1985.

Betsy Herzon

AP / Members of ACT UP protest outside the New York City Hall on Jan. 3, 1994, Rudy Giuliani's first day as mayor. In addition to raising awareness about AIDS, activists are credited with spawning participatory medicine, in which patients and their families help set the agenda for research on breast cancer and other diseases.

Two women at a 1990 Cincinnati exhibit look at a 1986 self-portrait of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who died in 1989 at 42 of AIDS complications. Protests and counterprotests over homoerotic themes in some pictures in his 1989 exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery became a major battle in the "culture wars" of that era.

Al Behrman / AP

A security guard is reflected in the glass-framed photograph of Robert Mapplethorpe's "Anemone" at Christie's auction house in New York in 2005.

Bebeto Matthews / AP

Artist and social activist Keith Haring in his Broome Street apartment in New York in 1983. The influential artist who drew inspiration from the streets of the city, died of AIDS complications in 1990 at the age of 31.

/ AP

Actress Emma Thompson is shown in a scene from HBO's 2003 miniseries "Angels in America," based on Tony Kushner's 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning play about New Yorkers affected by the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.

Stephen Goldblatt / AP

An Andy Warhol self-portrait from 2010's "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture," which celebrated the contributions of gay artists throughout history. Smithsonian officials came under withering criticism for removing a video by David Wojnarowicz from the exhibit when it came to the National Portrait Gallery.

/ AP

David Wojnarowicz’s 'Untitled (One day this kid <span>. . .</span>),' 1990-91, describes the alienation and persecution a child will face when he grows up and realizes he is gay. Wojnarowicz died of complications from AIDS in 1992.

David Wojnarowicz’s "Untitled (One day this kid . . .)," 1990-91, describes the alienation and persecution a child will face when he grows up and realizes he is gay. Wojnarowicz died of complications from AIDS in 1992.

/ PPOW Gallery and the estate of David Wojnarowicz

The cast of “The Normal Heart” at Arena Stage. Larry Kramer, one of the founders of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York, wrote the play about the frightened confusion in the early days of AIDS.

Scott Suchman / Arena Stage

Patrick Breen, left, as Ned Weeks and Luke Macfarlane as Felix Turner in “The Normal Heart.” The show won a Tony Award in 2011 for best revival of a play.

Marvin Joseph / The Washington Post

Felix Gonzalez-Torres created "Untitled," a framed silkscreen on paper in 1989. Gonzalez-Torres addressed AIDS in much of his work, including this piece that notes important events in gay history. He died of complications from AIDS in 1996.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation / Andrea Rosen Gallery

J. Morrison’s "aids: Made in U.S.A." from 2010 encourages viewers to take hand-silkscreened flags.

/ Transformer

The documentary “How to Survive a Plague, directed by David France, chronicles the work of ACT UP, the AIDS activist group.

/ Sundance Institute

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