The Lazaretto: An Installation About The Current Status of the AIDS Crisis

The Lazaretto poster, 1990

The Lazaretto poster, 1990

The Lazaretto was an anonymously created installation exhibited at P·P·O·W gallery in September, 1990. The exhibition drew a parallel between the treatment of lepers 400 years earlier and people with AIDS in the present day—addressing high social discrimination against IV drug users, queer and hispanic communities and other communities of color. The title Lazaretto was taken from a 16th Century Venetian hospital for people with contagious diseases including leprosy—as well as the boats used to quarantine diseased people out at sea.

The installation was presented anonymously in order to draw viewers attention to its message and away from the artists themselves. Behind the scenes, the piece was created by David Wojnarowicz with the goal of educating the public about the AIDS epidemic. David was extremely sick with HIV/AIDS himself and could not have realized his vision without the moral and physical support of his dedicated friends Paul Marcus and Susan Pyzow.

Originally intended for a public space, David feared the message being censored and ultimately executed it at the gallery. More than one reviewer later acknowledged this decision with one suggesting the NEA offer the installation a grant to travel and educate viewers outside New York.

The exhibition is set up as a maze whose narrative-like experience gives the viewer no choice but to follow its path once they step inside. “The whole idea was totally control the flow of the audience,” explains Paul Marcus.The installation consists of four parts.

"The Lazaretto: An installation about the current status of the AIDS crisis." Mixed media, 1990.

“The Lazaretto: An installation about the current status of the AIDS crisis.” Mixed media, 1990.

Part one is an analysis of the sufferers’ physical states which consisted of a vortex of trash bags lined with personal anecdotes from those suffering from AIDS with voice overs to support their stories. The first section concludes in a room that is found in squalor: viewers are presented with a mirror, a television playing numerous commercials, an abundance of pills on the table with the tv, a dead cockroach on top of the tv, rotten food, a dead rat in a mouse trap on the ground, another personal story on the wall written in bloody text, and a dead and decomposing skeleton covered in blood and vomit laying in the bed in the small apartment. Elizabeth Hess’ review in The Village Voice suggests “forcing viewers to take a look at the reality of one death, especially viewers who may not have seen the face of AIDS, is…necessary instruction.”

"The Lazaretto: An installation about the current status of the AIDS crisis." Mixed media, 1990.

"The Lazaretto: An installation about the current status of the AIDS crisis." Mixed media, 1990.

"The Lazaretto: An installation about the current status of the AIDS crisis." Mixed media, 1990.

"The Lazaretto: An installation about the current status of the AIDS crisis." Mixed media, 1990.

"The Lazaretto: An installation about the current status of the AIDS crisis." Mixed media, 1990.

As viewers travel into part two of the installation, they witness a space with numerically tattooed arms reaching out to the spectator. Between the arms are clock faces without hands accompanied with graphs about the AIDS crisis. Moving through the second section, David’s favorite song, What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong plays. A paper maché quarantine boat, The Boat of the True Lepers, depicts three politicians, President George Bush, John Cardinal O’Connor, and Senator Jesse Helms, who David held responsible for much turmoil in his community. The true lepers partake in the act of cannibalism where they use a piece of intestines as a straw to drain the life from a black infant — a symbolic reference to the high numbers of infants of color affected by the AIDS crisis. Lashed to the mast of the ship is a christ-like IV drug user as the boat moves through a sea of dead and drowning souls.

Part three is a dark passageway in which viewers are presented with an illuminated box containing a dancing Howdy Doody ventriloquist’s puppet representing a self-centered, uncaring politician in the midst of a vortex of money repeating empty political rhetoric: “Hey don’t look at me I’m just a puppet! I’m a politician! I just got sawdust for brains.”

David felt it was his mission to inform the community about the complexities of the AIDS crisis. “Individually and collectively we worked through urgency, illness, terror, insanity, and poignancy,” explains Susan Pyzow. Part four of the installation is a table with mounds of literature about the AIDS crisis and AIDS care and prevention from several community groups, condoms, and needle-bleaching kits for the taking.

Proceeds from the sale of items in the installation benefited these organizations, among them ACT UP, ADAPT (IV Drug Users), AIDS Treatment Resources, AmFAR, Caribbean Women’s Health Association, Coalition on Housing, Community Research Initiative, Hale House, Hetrick-Martin Institute, Hispanic AIDS Forum, Minority Task Force on AIDS, PWA Housing/Housing Works, People with AIDS Coalition, SAGE Positive and the Women & AIDS Resource Network.

—Sydney Lipner, David Wojnarowicz Foundation Fellow, Spring 2024