This poster was created for Red Hot + Dance, the second major album project by the Red Hot Organization, a New York–based nonprofit that combined pop culture, visual art, and music to raise funds and awareness for AIDS. The poster was displayed in record stores and clubs, and as a centerfold in magazines. The Red Hot + Dance project began as a series of live club events in London, New York City, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Los Angeles, Toronto, Dublin, Dallas, and Tokyo to commemorate World AIDS Day on December 1, 1991. This album ended up being the first major-label release devoted to one of the most influential and distinctive aspects of contemporary music: the remix. The AIDS-benefit album and series of corresponding dance parties united a broad, multicultural spectrum of artists, from white pop icons to Black dance-music innovators, to reach diverse youth audiences. By tapping into club-music culture rooted in Black and Latino gay communities, the project turned nightlife into a vehicle for safe-sex education and global solidarity against AIDS. Although Keith Haring had died of AIDS-related complications in 1990, his estate granted permission to use this artwork. Haring had long used his art to support AIDS activism, including coproducing the Public Art Fund’s Once Upon a Time mural for the NYC Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center. The Public Art Fund, a nonprofit that brings contemporary art into New York’s public spaces, and the New York City Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, a hub for gay advocacy, health services, and cultural programming, both played key roles in supporting art and activism during the AIDS crisis.
For inquiries about image licensing, please contact collections@posterhouse.org.