“If I could do a show that confused people so much, that was so ambiguous that they didn’t know what to think, but they felt sort of sickened by it and also entertained,” Jimmy DeSana told Laurie Simmons shortly before he passed away from AIDS-related illness in 1990, “then for me that would capture the moment that we’re going through right now.”⁠ ⁠ For his last major artistic project, DeSana collected his contradictory feelings and images in a book to be titled Salvation. Although he would not complete the volume before his death, he created this maquette. It comprises photomontages of flowers and fragments of male bodies, many recycled from older photographs of DeSana and his partner Darell Bagley. The photographs are black-and-white, but DeSana intended them to be printed with lurid color through the cibachrome process.⁠ ⁠ Ambiguity and opacity became increasingly important to DeSana, especially in reaction to the media’s and other artists’ objectification of queer people living with HIV/AIDS. He also pushed against the expectation that gay artists should somehow counter government inaction and misinformation around the epidemic. #WorldAIDSDay #JimmyDeSanaBkM⁠ ⁠ 📷 Jimmy DeSana (American, 1949-1990). Salvation (maquette),1987-88. Courtesy of the Jimmy DeSana Trust and P·P·O·W Gallery, New York. © Estate of Jimmy DeSana