Gregg Bordowitz looks out a window at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and surveys the misty expanse of the lakefront. “Meaning,” he says, “is made against the backdrop of history.”
The slim, dark-haired activist and artist knows this from personal experience. His own life and work have played out against the last two decades of a cultural and political scene rocked by the AIDS crisis and its attendant debates.
One of the country’s best-known activist video makers, he will premiere his latest documentary, “Habit,” at 8 p.m. Friday at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave. Proceeds from the event will benefit the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago, which provides free legal services to people with HIV. In addition to the premiere of “Habit,” Bordowitz’s 1993 autobiographical documentary, “Fast Trip, Long Drop,” will be shown at the museum on Saturday at 2:30 p.m., April 28 (at 2:30 p.m.) and at 6 p.m. April 30.
Addressing the issues
“Habit” juxtaposes private footage of Bordowitz — who is HIV-positive and on an AIDS “cocktail” drug regimen — with footage from the International AIDS Conference held in Durban, South Africa, in 2000. The conference addressed the global AIDS epidemic and the international battle to gain access to quality generic AIDS drugs for poor populations around the world. “Habit” includes scenes addressing the questions of drug distribution, the role of major pharmaceutical companies and legal debates over drug access.
Bordowitz was determined to share the conference footage with a wider audience.
“I had this political imperative to put it out,” he says. “I wanted to show the contradictions of living with HIV in this country and having access to the drugs, and [HIV-infected people] living in a situation where they don’t have access to the drugs. I was interested in the ethical responsibilities of someone in my situation.”
At 37, Bordowitz has a long history of AIDS activism.
“Gregg understands that the battle against AIDS is not just a battle to be fought by doctors and drug companies,” says Ann Hilton Fisher, executive director of the AIDS Legal Council. “Without determined grass-roots advocates, people with HIV, whether in South Africa or in Chicago, will continue to be neglected, and will continue to suffer and die needlessly.”
Left Brooklyn
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Bordowitz relocated to Chicago four years ago when his partner, the artist Claire Pentecost, landed a job at the Art Institute. Bordowitz, who has been with the school since 1988 as a visiting artist and lecturer, was soon hired on as an assistant professor.
He grew up a child painter, but artistic revelation came at 18 when he attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.
“I quickly learned that you didn’t have to be a painter to be an artist,” he recalls. “I met all these people who called themselves artists and were doing other things, like performance art and video art.”
Bordowitz began to combine an interest in politics with his artistic bent.
“I’ve always been interested in trying to bring my interest in art together with my interest in politics,” he says. “I stopped painting and started making video.”
In the early ’80s, he became aware of a new health crisis. “People I knew started getting sick,” he says. “This was back when AIDS was called GRID, Gay Related Immune Deficiency. It wasn’t even called AIDS yet. There were rumors about why people were getting sick, but no one really knew.”
His earliest video work quickly took on a political tone, and he eventually became a founding member of two groundbreaking video collectives, Testing the Limits and DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists).
Protesting lack of response
Meanwhile, the gay community was becoming increasingly militant over the government’s lackluster response to the growing AIDS crisis. It was against this backdrop that Bordowitz became politically active about the issue.
“The early mainstream coverage was terrible,” he says. “When I tell students about the AIDS crisis, I always have to remind people that in ’85 and ’86, mandatory quarantine and mandatory HIV-testing were being discussed as serious policy options on the front page of The New York Times. Those of us who felt we were at risk for HIV, or possibly had HIV, felt that tone in the air, and felt concentration camps were not an unthinkable option that we were facing.”
Bordowitz quickly became a key player in ACT UP, the radical AIDS activist group known for its public demonstrations and headline-grabbing stunts. But the growing public debate surrounding AIDS soon became a personal one as well. He tested HIV-positive in 1988.
He became involved with his partner, Claire Pentecost, eight years ago. In “Habit,” the couple candidly discuss the ways in which they continue to grapple with the personal demands of his illness.
Pentecost, who is HIV-negative, accepted her partner’s HIV-positive status from the start of their relationship. “I always knew that about him, because he’d always been very out about it, and made work about it,” she says. “I knew exactly what I was dealing with. Gregg is constitutionally honest.”
Although the two narrate the personal side of their experience in the video, Bordowitz is adamant that the broader question of global access to AIDS drugs is the primary focus.
“`Habit’ would fail if it was a film that revolved around my pain,” he says. “This is only interesting if it helps shed light on the fact that the majority of people with AIDS in the world do not have access to drugs.”
Bordowitz works
Gregg Bordowitz’s videography includes: “Treatment Action Campaign” (2000) “The Suicide” (1996) “A Cloud In Trousers” (1995) “Fast Trip, Long Drop” (1993) “Portraits of People Living With HIV” #1-#9 (1992-1995) “Living With AIDS” — Gay Men’s Health Crisis weekly cable television show in New York City.
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Selected Bordowitz videos are available through the Chicago-based Video Data Bank, www.vdb.org.
