Fact or Fiction

Finkelstein and Moffett were involved in the founding of Gran Fury, the anonymous collective that onetime participant, art historian, and historiographer of graphics of the early years of the AIDS crisis Douglas Crimp called "the unofficial propaganda ministry and guerrilla graphic designers" of the group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, established in March 1987 in New York). Frustrated with the unsatisfactory and contradictory response of the New York City government (not to mention the larger, even more conservative forces at work in Washington, D.C.) to the burgeoning AIDS crisis—and faced with a mounting toll of friends and loved ones who were perishing from the brutal disease—the artists worked together here but also collectively with others to design various posters, flyers, and stickers that would bring awareness to a larger public. Here, New York’s mayor Ed Koch is targeted for his equivocating statements about the extent of the crisis—a seemingly straightforward but mind-bogglingly vast number either way.