Archives of American Art

Oral history interview with Jack Waters

Summary

Collection ID:
AAA.waters18
Creators:
Waters, Jack
Fialho, Alex, 1989-
Dates:
2018 February 21-22
Languages:
English
.
Physical Description:
4 Items
sound files (5 hr., 59 min.) Audio
digital, wav
72 Pages
Transcript
Repository:

Scope and Contents

Scope and Contents
An interview with Jack Waters, conducted 2018 February 21 and 22, by Alex Fialho, for the Archives of American Art's Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic: An Oral History Project, at the Visual AIDS office in New York, New York.
Scope and Contents
Waters speaks of his early exposure to the arts through his family and their frequent visitors and boarders; the beginnings of his political consciousness, race consciousness, sex consciousness, and self-identity during the 1960s; his dance education at the Miquon School in Philadelphia; teaching at Miquon after briefly dancing in California; his dance and choreography education at the Julliard School and the Ailey School; his experience of the Lower East Side in the 1980s; the genesis and development of the Performing On One Leg collective; the start of the AIDS epidemic; collaborations with Gordon Kurtti and Brian Taylor, and their AIDS-related deaths; the importance of art-making and documentary practice during the AIDS epidemic; the beginning and development of his film and video work; collaborating with Peter Cramer on Black and White Study as both film and performance; receiving his HIV-positive diagnosis; the beginning and development of his work as a writer and journalist; his involvement in AIDS activist and queer activist organizations; a formative period in Ibiza during the fall 1983; his films The Male GaYze and Short Memory/No History; changes in queer activism he has observed since the 1980s, and the lack of historical memory about them; his experience of intergenerational queer dialogue; his involvement with Visual AIDS; and his thoughts on the idea of artistic legacy, both generally and in his particular case.

Biographical / Historical

Biographical / Historical
Jack Waters (1954- ) is a visual artist in New York, New York. Alex Fialho (1989- ) is a curator and arts writer and works as Programs Director for Visual AIDS in New York, New York.

Administration

Sponsor
Funded by the Keith Haring Foundation.
Existence and Location of Copies
Transcript is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.

Digital Content


Using the Collection

System Details
Recorded on unknown recorder.

Related Materials
The Archives of American Art also holds the papers of First name Last name.

Keywords

Keywords table of terms and types.
Keyword Terms Keyword Types
AIDS (Disease) and the arts Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Filmmakers -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Performance artists -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Interviews Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic: An Oral History Project Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid

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