Oral history interview with Jack Waters
name: label: Interviewee
content: Waters, Jack
label: Interviewer
content: Fialho, Alex, 1989-
label: Names
content: Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic: An Oral History Project
topic: label: Topic
content: AIDS (Disease) and the arts
label: Topic
content: Filmmakers -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: Performance artists -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: 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.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Waters, Jack
label: Interviewer
content: Fialho, Alex, 1989-
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Jack Waters (1954- ) is a visual artist in New York, New York.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.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 4 Items (sound files (5 hr., 59 min.) Audio, digital, wav)
label: Extent
content: 72 Pages (Transcript)
phystech: label: System Details
content: Recorded on unknown recorder.
unitdate: label: Date
content: 2018 February 21-22
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.waters18
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Interviews
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: Transcript is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: 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.
label: Scope and Contents
content: 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.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: The Archives of American Art also holds the papers of First name Last name.