Currently at David Zwirner’s New York locations are works by British artist Derek Jarman. They are part of the gallery’s series of curated solo exhibitions More Life  which includes artists whose lives were cut short by HIV/AIDS related complications during the first twenty years of the epidemic.

From the gallery’s website-

Jarman trained as a painter from 1963 to 1967 and continued to paint throughout his life, latterly in a studio at his cottage in Dungeness, England. In his paintings, words and abstract colors, rather than overt imagery, convey the artist’s personal and physical experience with AIDS. Hovering between abstraction and language, he subverts the means through which the media and the government address and represent people living with AIDS and the virus. These works linger in the experience of a body failing, and a body being failed by larger systemic bias, inaction, and homophobia.

Drawn from Jarman’s Slogan paintings (1992–1993), the works on view feature scrawled phrases such as “Arse Injected Death Syndrome” and “AIDS Isle” across expressionist canvases. Selected works from this series were included in Jarman’s landmark solo exhibition QUEER at Manchester City Art Galleries in 1992. Commenting on the massive exhibition banners hung from the museum’s facade, Jarman called them “a world first for civic gay pride.”

Also on view is Jarman’s incredibly moving film Blue.

From the gallery website-

Premiered at the Venice Biennale in June 1993, Blue was made after an AIDS-related infection rendered Jarman temporarily blind. Afterwards, as a result of lesions discovered on his eyes, the artist suffered a condition whereby vivid flashes of blue light interrupted his vision.

The film rejects images because, according to the artist, they “hinder the imagination and beg a narrative and suffocate with arbitrary charm, the admirable austerity of the void.” Instead, an unmodified, 75-minute screen of Yves Klein’s “International Klein Blue” is accompanied by a soundtrack of music and sounds. The voices of Tilda Swinton, Nigel Terry, John Quentin, and Jarman read a haunting combination of Jarman’s own poetry and excerpts from his hospital diaries.

Blue not only recounts Jarman’s corporeal experiences with the virus, but also demands that viewers meditate viscerally on color, the void, and the somatic experience of living with AIDS. The film is Jarman’s last feature, completed months before he died.

The interview below provides some background on the artist, and includes clips from the film.

This exhibition is on view until August 3rd, 2021.