To mark Day With(out) Art / World AIDS Day, the Tang Student Advisory Council (SAC) invites visitors to pick up a Red Ribbon and postcard at the front desk to honor the legacies of artists like Joe Brainard (1942–1994), who lost his life to AIDS-related causes.

The ribbons, which people are encouraged to wear, are affixed to a postcard featuring Brainard’s artwork Infant of Prague with Flowers (1966). The artist was an understated yet essential member of New York City’s literary and artistic downtown scene in the 1960s. He is best known for his intricate collages and his lyrical, queer coming-of-age memoir, I Remember (1975). Infant of Prague with Flowers will be on view in the upcoming Tang exhibition a field of bloom and hum, which explores queer art and community in the United States from the early 20th century to the present. The exhibition opens on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2025.

Visual AIDS, an arts organization founded to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic, declared December 1, 1989, as the first “Day Without Art.” The campaign encouraged arts institutions to shroud their artworks and instead offer information on HIV and safe sex practices, close their galleries, or program memorials or other events. The organizers aimed to educate visitors as well as to celebrate artists and friends who died due to AIDS.

In 1991, Visual AIDS launched the organization’s Red Ribbon Project, which has since become a global symbol of AIDS awareness.