It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic

Written by Jack Lowery

Narrated by Vikas Adam

An “unsparing account” (NPR) of art collective Gran Fury, which fought back during the AIDS crisis through direct action and community-made propaganda

In the late 1980s, the AIDS pandemic was annihilating queer people, intravenous drug users, and communities of color in America, and disinformation about the disease ran rampant. Out of the activist group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), an art collective that called itself Gran Fury formed to campaign against corporate greed, government inaction, stigma, and public indifference to the epidemic.

Writer Jack Lowery examines Gran Fury’s art and activism from iconic images like the “Kissing Doesn’t Kill” poster to the act of dropping piles of fake bills onto the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Lowery offers a complex, moving portrait of a collective and its members, who built essential solidarities with each other and whose lives evidenced the profound trauma of enduring the AIDS crisis.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hachette Audio
• Release date: Apr 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781549166105

Reviews for It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful

[caitirin-141487 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I didn’t know much about this history of AIDS in America, in fact what little I did know came from watching RENT, reading Tales of the City, and hearing older queer folks talking about our own lost generation.  For the longest time I thought AIDS had taken place in the 70s.  Which is pretty ridiculous given that I was in HIGH SCHOOL in the 90’s.  
However, that’s kind of the point.  People weren’t talking about it.  We didn’t have social media and the government was actively ignoring the epidemic.  This is not even mentioning the fact that it actually had been around longer in black and brown communities who were deemed not important enough to pay attention to.  It’s really only because of white supremacy that people finally started listening, when it started to affect wealthy white people.  


This book is both a valuable history lesson and a look into the personal lives and dramas of the people who made up an art collective called Gran Fury.  They created the slogan Silence = Death and were very involved with the AIDS activist group Act Up!


Personally, I found the book to be a little too heavy on interpersonal relationship dynamics and not as much on the history as I might have liked, but it was still a very valuable history to learn about.

[bibliovermis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fascinating and important story, and a good entry point for a lot of other reading and research into the AIDs crisis, ACT UP, and Gran Fury. A thorough but very engaging read—I finished it in record time for non-fiction, which I usually struggle to get through.