Visual AIDS’ Artist+ Members Lucas Michael, Luna Luis Ortiz, and Frederick Weston discuss their artwork in the second program in conjunction with Visual AIDS’ summer exhibition PERSONS OF INTEREST. PERSONS OF INTEREST: PORTRAITURE & PERSONA, moderated by Alex Fialho, brings together these artists to discuss the ways in which they use the camera and photography as means of performance and a space in which to play with identity.

Lucas Michael‘s editorial photography for New York Magazine includes photographing polaroids of celebrities such as Lupita Nyong’o, Hugh Jackman, Lena Dunham, and Adele, while his artwork “Still Life (LM Squared)” finds him outfitted as a drag double of Liza Minelli.

Luna Luis Ortiz was inspired to pick up one of his father’s cameras after he became HIV positive at the age of 14 in 1986, beginning the birth of his self-portraits as a way to leave images for his family in remembrance before he became what he considered the images of AIDS in the 1980’s.

Frederick Weston communicates the soul of a thoughtful man feeling his way through physical realities and representation in America, often through themes of style, fashion, and the commercial male image.

PERSONS OF INTEREST, curated by Sam Gordon for Visual AIDS, features a wide cross section of Visual AIDS artist members and friends. The term, “person of interest” often identifies someone in an investigation that possesses characteristics that merit further attention. The investigation presented here is a collection of drawing, painting, photography, performance, video, and sculpture.

PERSONS OF INTEREST, presented by Visual AIDS at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division features the trained and self taught, long term survivors and the prematurely lost, and individuals who live for us very much in the present, some only in our hearts and minds.

The exhibition includes work by Raynes Birkbeck, Mark Carter, Ben Cuevas, Chloe Dzubilo, Arnold Fern, Tim Greathouse, Keith Haring, Hudson, Affrekka Jefferson, Jerry the Marble Faun, Joyce McDonald, Lucas Michael, Nicolas Moufarrege, Luna Luis Ortiz, Hugh Steers, Hunter Reynolds, Tseng Kwong Chi, Muna Tseng, and Frederick Weston.

Pictured works, from left: Luna Luis Ortiz, Self-portrait-Egyptian Pharaoh, 2003; Frederick Weston, “I’m In Here Somewhere”, Plaster, 10 x 6 x 5; Lucas Michael, polaroid self-portrait