VIRAL\VALUE
Curated by David Brinker and Dr. Aaron Rosen

Jordan Eagles has been exploring the aesthetics and ethics of blood as an artistic medium since the late 1990s. Eagles’ signature preservation technique with blood and resin permanently retains the organic material’s natural colors, patterns, and textures. With each formal innovation—from painterly spatters to immersive projections to sculptural crystallized shards preserved in resin—he has also pressed conceptual boundaries, challenging us to rethink both pieties and politics. In recent years, he has produced works made with donated human blood procured from the LGBTQI+ communities. In doing so, he draws attention to what he argues is a stigmatizing, discriminatory policy maintained by the U.S. government that effectively bans blood donations from gay and bisexual men.

VIRAL\VALUE presents recent work by Eagles that sets the value systems of art, religion, and healthcare into dynamic discussion, challenging us to think about whose lives, experiences, and stories are acknowledged and valued, in what contexts, and by whom.

Pandemics, Polemics, and Possibilities

Pandemics expose our bodies’ vulnerabilities, as well as our social and moral frailties. Consider AIDS and COVID-19: in both cases, an initial lack of scientific data combined with a viral spread of misinformation to create a sense of panic and polarization. Decisions about research, prevention, and treatment, and spending are never neutral. Bias and discrimination can easily color and distort discourses, with devastating and long-lasting effects on both individuals and communities. Determining value—material, societal, or moral—is fraught with the risk of undervaluing what is truly important.

In its own way, the art world struggles with questions of malpractice and distorted values. On November 15, 2017, a painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci (some experts dispute this claim) sold for a staggering $450.3 million at Christie’s New York, making it the most expensive artwork in history. The painting features a close-up portrait of Jesus Christ as Salvator Mundi, (Savior of the World). The works in VIRAL\VALUE bring together this image with blood from an HIV+ undetectable long-term survivor and activist. The central work, Jesus, Christie’s, incorporates an original auction catalogue refashioned as a receptacle for blood collection tubes. Art historian Dr. Joanne Allen notes,

“. . . the twelve medical tubes recall the twelve apostles and medieval receptacles for saintly relics, but the blood itself, rather than representing the redemptive blood of Christ, communicates the exclusion, fear, and ostracism that HIV+ survivors experience. This unsettling and provocative artwork, therefore, not only criticizes the excessive wealth brought to light at the Christie’s auction but uses the universal motif of blood to contrast themes of religious salvation and social exclusion.”

HIV and AIDS remain a lived reality for more than 38 million people worldwide. As of mid-October 2022, there have been nearly 618 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, resulting in over 6.5 million deaths. The effects of these pandemics will play out over generations, yet contradictions abound. Sophisticated COVID-19 vaccines were developed in record time, but many people refuse to receive them. The latest HIV treatments keep viral loads undetectable, making the disease untransmissible, but U.S. blood donation policies exclude gay and bisexual men categorically, rather than according to behavioral risk factors.

Art That Speaks Up

Stories are contagious and transmissible, from the shared myths and histories that bind communities to intentional misinformation that demonizes vulnerable populations. The works in VIRAL\VALUE demonstrate a powerful counternarrative: people who are stigmatized can assert their own worth, often by reclaiming the very images and symbols used to exclude or castigate them. Artists are important agents in these movements, as seen in the early decades of the AIDS pandemic with such efforts as ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. MOCRA’s groundbreaking 1994 exhibition, Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS, assembled work by diverse artists who expressed the experience of HIV and AIDS through the language of faith and spirituality.

Vinci (Donor Portrait) is a poster collaboration between Eagles and organizer Theodore Kerr of What Would an HIV Doula Do? WWHIVDD is a community of people joined in response to the ongoing AIDS crisis. One side of the poster features a picture of Vinci (displayed in the side chapel opposite), taken by the activist whose blood is incorporated into the artwork. A close look reveals the activist’s hands and phone taking the picture. The other side includes a text by writer, poet, and musician Bryn Kelly, as well as two questions posed by WWHIVDD: What is Viral? What is Value? Kerr reflects,

“What does it mean to use the blood of an activist living with HIV to render a portrait of Jesus, who, it can be said, is the greatest blood donor of all time? What can we say about how the source of Vinci is the world’s most expensive painting? . . . Does it matter that the activist is undetectable? Should it? Do we ever want to suggest a value judgment concerning the status of someone’s blood? Does it matter that Leonardo da Vinci might not have painted the Salvator Mundi? Is value dependent upon source? If so, what does this tell us about transmission of ideas, influence, talent?”

Bathed in the light of Vinci (Illuminations)—a projected variation on Eagles’ Vinci images—the poster is freely available for visitors who wish to take one.

Exhibition co-curator Dr. Aaron Rosen notes,

“The works in VIRAL\VALUE are equal parts startling and subtle, steeped in scrupulous attention to religious and political discourses around health. They function as ethical and theological inquiries into the types of blood, bodies, and love that we value and venerate.”

Through his reworkings of Salvator Mundi, Eagles prompts us to listen broadly and attentively to the experiences of others. What we learn might cause us to reflect on our personal and collective values. Ultimately, we face the challenging question of how closely our own actions, and the policies and spending of our society, align with the values we profess.

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Jordan Eagles: VIRAL\VALUE is co-curated by MOCRA Director David Brinker and Dr. Aaron Rosen, Professor of Religion & Visual Culture and Director of the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts & Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary. Special thanks to Theodore Kerr of What Would an HIV Doula Do? for invaluable assistance in developing related programming.