work hard
be kind
create change
Nelson Santos produces exhibitions, publications, artist projects, and public programs. Over 20 years of experience in the arts, advocacy, and non-profit sector — leading the vision of non-profit art organizations with LGBTQ, HIV/AIDS and social justice missions — including Visual AIDS and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art. He collaborates with artists, curators, activists, writers, and community partners to produce diverse programs that bring people together and inspire change.
Santos is currently the Academic Advisory for the MFA Fine Arts department at the School of Visual Arts (SVA), and has taught at Pratt Institution, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College, Indiana University Northwest, and DePaul University.
EXHIBITIONS
Exhibitions
Worked with guest curators to produce LGBTQ and activist based exhibitions including: Art After Stonewall 1969-1989, On Our Backs: The Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work, and Other Points of View for the Leslie-Lohman Museum; and VOICE=SURVIVAL, Everyday, Persons of Interest, Party Out of Bounds: Nightlife As Activism, Ephemera As Evidence, NOT OVER, House In Vermont, Not only this but "‘New language beckons us’, Undetectable, Mixed Messages, To Believe, Tainted Love, and Side by Side for Visual AIDS.
Curated: Y’all Better Quiet Down, Leslie-Lohman Museum and BGSQD, Scott Hunt: Truth Goes Up In Vapors, SpringBreak, NY; Robert Blanchon + Stephen Andrews, Miami Dade Art Gallery, FL; Between Ten, Spin Gallery, Toronto; Video Positive, The Bronx Museum of Art, NY; Sight of Construction, The LGBT Center, NY; and Pulse Art Miami and NY.
PUBLICATIONS
Publications
Conceived the ongoing series DUETS. Pairing artists, writers, and activists, in conversation about their creative process, personal histories and contemporary social practices; the series include intimate discussions between Kia LaBeija & Julie Tolentino (2018), Annie Sprinkle & Ben Cuevas (2016), Stephen Andrews & Gregg Bordowitz (2014), and tributes to artists Chloe Dzubilo (2014), Nicolas Moufarrege (2016), and Jerome Caja (2018).
Published the monographs of artists who died of AIDS-related complications, including Hugh Steers: The Complete Paintings (2015), and Robert Blanchon (2006), to increase scholarship and preserve a legacy that might otherwise be lost.
Produced exhibition catalogues and NOT OVER an illustrated timeline of Visual AIDS history. Publications available here.
ARTIST PROJECTS
Artist Projects
Commissioned and produced artist designed AIDS Awareness Projects for Visual AIDS.
Working collaboratively with artist on innovate sexual health and AIDS awareness campaigns that connect artists with social issues, these printed editions include posters, stickers, buttons, tote bags and safer sex kits. Campaigns such as Safe Sex Rules, and Play Smart address harm reductions, HIV criminalization, treatment, prevention, and promote conversation around HIV/AIDS.
Other projects such as fierce pussy’s For The Record mourns the loss of friends, family, and lovers; Wu Tsang’s Conception views the inception of AIDS through the media; while Nayland Blake’s Love Happened Here reminds us to not give up and “to keep making love visible and public.”
Artists and designers include Mike Alago, Tania Anderson, Nayland Blake, Beverly Bland Boydston III, A.K. Burns, John Chaich, Curtis Carman, Aaron Cobbett, Ben Cuevas, Joe De Hoyos, Chloe Dzubilo & T De Long, Neil Farber, fierce pussy, Avram Finkelstein, Benjamin Fredrickson, Jean Foos, Deborah Grant, Erik Hanson, Mike Harwood, Kate Huh, Jayson Keeling, inkedKenny, Derek Jackson, Chris Johanson, Shan Kelley, Brian Kenny, Kayrock, Kia Labeija, Lou Laurita, Nancer LeMoins, Rebecca Levi, Noah Lyons, Amos Mac, Greg Mitchell, Michael Mitchell, Iván Monforte, J. Morrison, Slava Mogutin, Carrie Moyer, Alice O’Malley, Luna Luis Ortiz, Maria Piñeres, Amy Jean Porter, William Powhida, Silvia Prada, Richard Renaldi, Hunter Reynolds, L.J. Roberts, Kay Rosen, Carmine Santaniello, Sue Schaffner, Christopher Schulz, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Ginger Brooks Takahashi, Wu Tsang, Nathan Vincent, Daryl Vocat, and Jessica Whitbread. View additional artists projects for Visual AIDS here.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Public Programs
Presented public art programs, film screenings, panel discussions, workshops, and performances, that address the ongoing AIDS crisis, and the underlying issues that contribute to the pandemic, such as poverty, homophobia, stigma and racism. Launched new programs series including:
LOVE POSITIVE WOMEN workshops teachs women living with HIV and artists how to create handmade paper and turn them into personal valentines that are then distributed to HIV-positive women around the world as an act of love, caring and empowerment.
ALTERNATE ENDINGS film series commissions new work by artists, filmmakers and collectives that reflect on the ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic through diverse stories and narratives. Film and video work have been presented in over 120 international venues, and presented annually for World AIDS Day / Day With(out) Art.
INTERNATIONAL CURATORIAL RESIDENCY for CULTURAL RESEARCH on HIV, in collaboration with Visual AIDS and Residency Unlimited, invites curators and scholars to research the intersections of visual art, social justice and HIV/AIDS. Residents include participates from Croatia, Australia, Mexico, Basque Country and the United Kingdom.
Interviews and Contributions
Pride Collection: Queer Storytellers, curated for 1st Dibs, June 1, 2021
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT AIDS COULD FILL A MUSEUM: Curatorial ethics and the ongoing epidemic in the 21st Century, On Curating, Issue 42 / August 2019
Unconditional Love, Visual AIDS web gallery, November 2017
Reflecting on AIDS in New York City: Jenny Holzer in Collaboration with Surface, Surface, October 2016
Love Happened Here: Art, Archives and a Living History: A Conversation between Amy Sadao, Nelson Santos and Theodore Kerr, Art AIDS America, University of Washington Press, 2015
Interview with Mark Addison Smith, YEARS YET YESTERDAY, Artist Book, 2014
The Weight of Sweat and Tears, Visual AIDS, 2012
Michael Harwood Wants You on His Kitchen Table, The Archive, Leslie-Lohman Museum, 2009
Michael Muller: Naked Storytelling, The Archive, Leslie-Lohman Museum, 2008
Jeanine Oleson Just Might Believe in Bigfoot…, The Archive, Leslie-Lohman Museum, 2007
Talks & Panels
Virtual Insights: Objects of Desire, a conversation with Brian Wallis, Joel Smith, and Nelson Santos, American Folk Art Museum, February 9, 2021
Poems, Playlists, Recipes, and Rituals, Queer|Art, January 28, 2021
HIV/AIDS Advocacy and the Arts: Then and Now, Zimmerli Art Museum, December 4, 2020
Activating the Archive Project, NYU Fales Library & Special Collections, NY, Nov. 8, 2018
ART & AIDS: The Influence of Art in the AIDS Epidemic, Leslie-Lohman Museum, NY, Dec. 7, 2017
FOUND: Imaginative Alliances, Danspace Project, St. Marks Church, NY, November 19, 2016
Queering Institutions: Collecting, Preserving, and Presenting, Fashion Institute of Technology, NY, November 16, 2016
Re/Presenting HIV/AIDS, Belk Visual Arts Center, Davidson College, NC, Sept. 3, 2014
Why We Fight, New York Public Library, NY, February 5, 2014
(re)Presenting AIDS: Culture and Accountability, CUNY Graduate Center, NY, Aug 20, 2013
You Are Cordially Invited: The Art and Influence of Robert Blanchon, Fales Library & Special Collections, NY, Jan. 26, 2010
Thank you
Thank you to everyone I had the pleasure of working with over the years especially Amy Sadao, Theodore Kerr, Esther McGowan, Alex Fialho, and Kyle Croft at Visual AIDS; and the exhibition and collections team at Leslie-Lohman Museum: Branden Wallace, Noam Parness, Angela Hallinan, Daniel Sander, Kim Hanson and director Gonzalo Casals.
A special thanks to all the artists, activists, curators, writers, designers, and cultural workers I had the honor of collaborating with.
Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean. - Ryunosuke Satoro