SUNIL GUPTA
  • Home
  • Photography
    • Friends & Lovers: Coming Out in Montréal in the 1970s
    • Christopher Street, New York 1976
    • London 1977
    • Cruising 1960s Delhi
    • Towards an Indian Gay Image
    • London 1982
    • Lovers: Ten Years On
    • Reflections of the Black Experience
    • Asians in Bradford
    • Exiles
    • Social Security
    • "Pretended" Family Relationships
    • Trespass 1
    • Trespass 2
    • Trespass 3
    • From Here to Eternity
    • The Body Positive
    • Love and Light
    • Imagining Childhood
    • Homelands
    • Tales of a City: Delhi
    • Country: Portrait of an Indian Village
    • Mr Malhotra's Party
    • Anonymous Self Portraits
    • Love, Undetectable
    • Women in Love
    • The New Pre-Raphaelites
    • Sun City
    • Stockwell
    • Helmut Lang Christopher Street
    • Dissent and Desire
    • Songs of Deliverance — Part I
    • Songs of Deliverance — Part II
    • Walworth Road
    • Arrival
  • Books
    • An Economy of Signs
    • Disrupted Borders
    • Ecstatic Antibodies
    • Trespass 1
    • Sunil Gupta Monograph
    • Pictures From Here
    • Wish You Were Here
    • Queer
    • Delhi: Communities of Belonging
    • Christopher Street
    • Lovers: Ten Years On
    • London 1982
    • From Here To Eternity
    • We Were Here : Sexuality, Photography, and Cultural Difference
    • Come Out
    • Tessa Boffin Ed. Sunil Gupta
    • Tate Photography: Sunil Gupta
  • Shop
    • Limited Edition Prints
    • Books For Sale
  • Video
  • Curating
    • Stevie Bezencenet
    • Joy Gregory
    • Same Difference
    • The New Republics
    • Simryn Gill
    • Divine Facades
    • Fernando Arias
  • Newsletters
    • 2025
    • 2024 Archive
    • 2023 Archive
  • Columns
    • A Return from Exile
    • Relative Values
    • The End of Marriage
    • A Laying on of Hands
    • City of Dreams
    • Oral History
    • Pride and Prejudice
  • Press
  • About
  • Contact

Ecstatic Antibodies:
​Resisting the AIDS Mythology

Picture
​Design: John Gibbs
Rivers Oram Press / London 1990
Funded by Arts Council England

I met Tessa Boffin in 1988 at an AIDS and Photography meeting at the then London Lesbian and Gay Centre. We decided to collaborate on an exhibiton and book project about AIDS and representation in the UK. This was partly because a lot of the discourse was American dominated and partly becasue we wanted to make a pro-sex and pro-queer HIV project to counter the British government's response.

​Cover photo: © Rotimi Fani-Kayode & Alex Hirst

"The book and exhibition launched with it represent a powerful exploration of both image and text of the AIDS crisis.
​
Different voices reveal the profound inadequacies in our attitude to disease. The contributors disrupt the politically-laden mythology of HIV and AIDS, and affirm the persistence of love and desire in the face of death.

More than an interruption to personal life, AIDS has stimulated an erruption in creative life. By wresting control of the imagery of AIDS Ecstatic Antibodies demystifies icons like the nation and the family and illuminates attitudes to gender, sexuality, racial and moral diversity."

The artists and writers were:
​
Emily Andersen
Tessa Boffin
Mehboob Dada
Rotimi Fani-Kayode
Margot Farnham
Nicola Field
Joy Gregory
Sunil Gupta
Lynn Hewett
Alex hirst
Isaac Julien
Stuart Marshall
Roberta McGrath
Mandy Merck
Pratibha Parmar
David Ruffell
Allan deSouza
S R Tobe
Simon Watney
Jeffrey Weeks
  • Home
  • Photography
    • Friends & Lovers: Coming Out in Montréal in the 1970s
    • Christopher Street, New York 1976
    • London 1977
    • Cruising 1960s Delhi
    • Towards an Indian Gay Image
    • London 1982
    • Lovers: Ten Years On
    • Reflections of the Black Experience
    • Asians in Bradford
    • Exiles
    • Social Security
    • "Pretended" Family Relationships
    • Trespass 1
    • Trespass 2
    • Trespass 3
    • From Here to Eternity
    • The Body Positive
    • Love and Light
    • Imagining Childhood
    • Homelands
    • Tales of a City: Delhi
    • Country: Portrait of an Indian Village
    • Mr Malhotra's Party
    • Anonymous Self Portraits
    • Love, Undetectable
    • Women in Love
    • The New Pre-Raphaelites
    • Sun City
    • Stockwell
    • Helmut Lang Christopher Street
    • Dissent and Desire
    • Songs of Deliverance — Part I
    • Songs of Deliverance — Part II
    • Walworth Road
    • Arrival
  • Books
    • An Economy of Signs
    • Disrupted Borders
    • Ecstatic Antibodies
    • Trespass 1
    • Sunil Gupta Monograph
    • Pictures From Here
    • Wish You Were Here
    • Queer
    • Delhi: Communities of Belonging
    • Christopher Street
    • Lovers: Ten Years On
    • London 1982
    • From Here To Eternity
    • We Were Here : Sexuality, Photography, and Cultural Difference
    • Come Out
    • Tessa Boffin Ed. Sunil Gupta
    • Tate Photography: Sunil Gupta
  • Shop
    • Limited Edition Prints
    • Books For Sale
  • Video
  • Curating
    • Stevie Bezencenet
    • Joy Gregory
    • Same Difference
    • The New Republics
    • Simryn Gill
    • Divine Facades
    • Fernando Arias
  • Newsletters
    • 2025
    • 2024 Archive
    • 2023 Archive
  • Columns
    • A Return from Exile
    • Relative Values
    • The End of Marriage
    • A Laying on of Hands
    • City of Dreams
    • Oral History
    • Pride and Prejudice
  • Press
  • About
  • Contact