Oral history interview with Frederick Weston
name: label: Interviewee
content: Weston, Frederick, 1946-2020
label: Interviewer
content: Kerr, Theodore
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: Artists -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: Multimedia (Art)
label: Topic
content: African American artists
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: Weston, Frederick, 1946-2020
label: Interviewer
content: Kerr, Theodore
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Interviewee Frederick Weston (1946- ) is a multimedia artist in New York, N.Y. Interviewer Theodore Kerr (1979- ) is a writer and organizer in New York, N.Y.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 4 Items (sound files (5 hrs., 28 min.), digital, wav)
label: Extent
content: 130 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 2016 August 31-September 5
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.weston16
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Interviews
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
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
label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview with Frederick Weston, conducted 2016 August 31 and September 5, by Theodore Kerr, for the Archives of American Art's Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic: An Oral History Project, at Weston's home in New York, N.Y.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Weston speaks of his childhood in Detroit; early understandings of his gender; attending Ferris State University in Michigan; moving to New York in 1973; New York nightclub culture before the AIDS crisis; studying at FIT and working in the fashion industry; beginning to consider himself an artist in the late 1990s after years of collage work in street settings; being diagnosed with HIV in the mid-1990s; imbuing his art with his personal experience; his body of work in photography, installations, and poetry; his health care and regiment since being diagnosed with HIV; evolutions in his personal outlook since being diagnosed; the trajectory of his sex life from adolescence; moving into his current apartment in Chelsea; and reflections on America's racial situation. Weston also recalls Claude Payne, Apollonia, Billy Blair, Stephanie Crawford, Franz Renard Smith, Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, Bruce Benderson, and others.