Jean Carlomusto (born 1959, Queens, New York) is a New York filmmaker,

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

activist, and interactive media artist. She produced and directed HBO's Emmy nominated documentary, ''Larry Kramer in Love & Anger'', which was featured at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

. Her works have been exhibited internationally in festivals, museums and on television. She was an early pioneer in documenting the AIDS crisis. As the founder of the Multimedia Unit at

Gay Men's Health Crisis The GMHC (formerly Gay Men's Health Crisis) is a New York City–based non-profit, volunteer-supported and community-based AIDS service organization whose mission statement is to "end the AIDS epidemic and uplift the lives of all affected." Foun ...

, she created the television series ''Living with AIDS''. She was a founding member of

DIVA TV Diva TV was a British TV channel owned by Universal Networks International, which launched on Sky in the UK and Ireland on channel 269 at midday on 1 October 2007. It aired shows such as ''The Late Show With David Letterman'', ''The Oprah Winfr ...

(a video affinity group of ACT UP) and a member of the Testing The Limits Video Collective.

Education

Jean Carlomusto graduated from

Sewanhaka High School Sewanhaka High School is a six-year public high school located in Floral Park, New York. It is part of the Sewanhaka Central High School District. Sewanhaka High School was established in 1929. Its name translates from Lenape to "Island of Shell ...

Floral Park Floral Park is an incorporated village in Nassau County, Long Island, New York, United States. The population was 16,172 at the 2020 census. Floral Park is at the western border of Nassau County, mainly in the Town of Hempstead, while the ...

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

, New York, in 1977. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in film from C.W. Post in 1981. She earned her M.P.S. in Interactive Telecommunications from the

Tisch School of the Arts The New York University Tisch School of the Arts (commonly referred to as Tisch) is the performing, cinematic, and media arts school of New York University. Founded on August 17, 1965, as the School of the Arts at New York University, Tisch ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

Career

Carlomusto has played a major role in media production for AIDS activists groups. Her AIDS activist work began in 1986, while working as a teaching assistant at

, assisting student teams in a class making educational videos for local organizations. When Joey Leonte from the Gay Men's Health Crisis came to her class to request a video, and none of the students wanted to work with him, the shame of her class' reaction drove Carlomusto to volunteer for the Gay Men's Health Crisis to increase awareness about AIDS and build empathy for those with the illness. She began as the projectionist for their safe sex workshops, then left her teaching job at NYU to start up the Multimedia Production Unit in order to produce a weekly television program called ''Living with AIDS''. This was the longest running of the Gay Men's Health Crisis television series, with guest videographers including Marina Alvarez, Sarah Cawley, Ronald Dodd, Andres J. Figueroa, Laura Ganis,

Alexandra Juhasz Alexandra Jeanne "Alex" Juhasz (born 1964) is a feminist writer and theorist of media production. Education Juhasz received her B.A. in American Studies and English at Amherst College in 1986. Shortly after graduating she participated in a year-l ...

, Ray Navarro,

Steven Okazaki Steven Okazaki (born March 12, 1952) is an American documentary filmmaker known for his raw, cinéma vérité-style documentaries that frequently show ordinary people dealing with extraordinary circumstances. He has received a Peabody Award, a Pr ...

, Catherine Saalfield, Kristin Thomas, and Paul Zakrzewski. These videographers not only made safe sex videos and educational films for healthy living with AIDS, but also gathered oral histories and interviews from diverse group of people suffering from the disease. Carlomusto was part of the Woman's affinity group of ACT UP that focused on bringing visibility to how AIDS impacted women. In 1988, in response to an article by Dr Robert Gould in ''Cosmopolitan Magazine'' which said that straight women did not have to worry about AIDS, the Woman's Affinity group, including Rebecca Cole, Maxine Wolfe,

Maria Maggenti Maria Maggenti (born c. 1962) is an American film director and screenwriter, who has traditionally created independent films. She was the script editor for the American television series ''Without a Trace'' (2003) and has written many episodes for ...

and Denise Ribble, and Carlomusto organized a direct action against ''

Cosmopolitan Magazine ''Cosmopolitan'' (stylized in all caps) is an American quarterly fashion and entertainment magazine for women, first published based in New York City in March 1886 as a family magazine; it was later transformed into a literary magazine and, sinc ...

''. They interviewed the author of that article, psychiatrist Robert Gould, who had made uninformed statements about women and AIDS. In February 1987, Testing the Limits Collective founders

Gregg Bordowitz Gregg Bordowitz (born August 14, 1964) is a writer, artist, and activist who worked as a professor in the Video, New Media, and Animation department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. H ...

and David Meieran filmed the first ACT UP demonstration at

Wall Street Wall Street is a street in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs eight city blocks between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the west and South Street (Manhattan), South Str ...

. They met Jean Carlomusto at this demonstration, who was taping it for ''Living with AIDS''. The filmmakers built up a rapport because they were among the few people at the event with non-professional video equipment. Carlomusto subsequently joined Testing the Limits Collective. Bordowitz and Meieran contacted Hilery Kipness who worked with Downtown Community Television, along with Sandra Elgear and Robyn Hutt from the Whitney program, and together they formed the Testing the Limits collective. This collective created ''Testing the Limits: New York City'', the first direct action AIDS activist video. After working on this film together, Bordowitz joined Carlomusto at the Gay Men's Health Crisis, working together on the ''Living with AIDS'' series from 1988 to 1994. Carlomusto, Bordowitz, Catherine Saalfield, Ray Navarro,

Ellen Spiro Ellen Spiro is an American documentary filmmaker. She is a producer and director of the television documentary '' Are the Kids Alright?'', which won an Emmy Award in 2005. Spiro is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she h ...

, Costa Pappas, Robert Beck, Rob Kurilla, and George Plagianos went on to form DIVA TV in 1989. Standing for "Damned Interfering Video Activists", DIVA TV was an affinity group of ACT UP that created short direct action videos at demonstrations, as well as 160 video programs for public access television channels, including the weekly series "AIDS Community Television" from 1991 to 1996, and the weekly call-in public access series "ACT UP Live" from 1994 to 1996. Carlomusto participated in the creation of several early DIVA TV videos: ''Target City Hall'', ''Like a Prayer'' (1991) and ''Pride''. In 1991, Jean Carlomusto joined Fierce Pussy, a lesbian art collective that produced AIDS-related art and media for ACT UP. In particular, Carlomusto focused on media geared toward lesbians to increase their awareness about the disease. The cumulative work that Carlomusto had done throughout her AIDS activist career helped her produce independent documentaries on the topics of AIDS, lesbians, and LGBT history and culture. Her best known work include the documentaries ''L is for the Way You Look'' (1991); ''Shatzi is Dying'' (2000); ''Sex in an Epidemic'' (2011), and ''Larry Kramer: In Love and Anger'' (2015). Independent from her AIDS work, Carlomusto created the personal documentary ''To Catch a Glimpse'' (2007), which investigates the mysterious death of her grandmother. Some of Carlomusto's work is now permanently housed in museums such as the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

in New York, and has been exhibited in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

, and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. Jean Carlomusto is currently director of the Television Center and professor in the Communication and Film Department at LIU Post

Long Island University Long Island University (LIU) is a private university in Brooklyn and Brookville, New York, United States. The university enrolls over 16,000 students and offers over 500 academic programs at its main campuses, LIU Brooklyn and LIU Post on Long I ...

in Brookville, New York.

Personal life

Carlomusto identifies as an Italian-American lesbian from a working-class background. She is a senior student at the Village Zendo in New York City. She is in a relationship with Lori Herbison.

Publications

Carlomusto, J. (1989). "Making It: AIDS Activist Television." ''Video Guide,'' p. 18. Carlomusto, J. (1992). "Focusing on Women." in ACT UP (ed.) ''Women, AIDS, and Activism, New York Women's and AIDS Book Group.'' Boston, MA: South End, pp. 215–218. Carlomusto, J. (1992). "Preserving Desire". ''Felix: A Journal of Media Arts and Communication''. Carlomusto, J. & Bordowitz, G. (1992). "Do It! Safer Sex Porn for Girls and Boys Comes of Age." Conference paper in A. Klusaček and K. Morrison (Eds.) ''A Leap in the Dark: AIDS, Art, and Contemporary Cultures: 5th International Conference on AIDS.''

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. Carlomusto, J. (2004). "Radiant Spaces: An Introduction to Emily Roysdon's Photographs." ''GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies, 10'' (4)'','' pp. 671–679. Carlomusto, J. (2013). "Archival Praxis." GLQ: A Journal of

Gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...

and

Lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

Studies, 19 (4), p. 570. Pidduck, J. (2009). "

Queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

Kinship and Ambivalence: Video Ethnographies by Jean Carlomusto and

Richard Fung Richard Fung (born 1954) is a video artist, writer, public intellectual and theorist who currently lives and works in Toronto, Ontario. He was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and is openly gay. Fung was a professor at OCAD University. He earne ...

." ''GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies, 15'' (3)'','' pp. 441–468.

Exhibits

"To Catch a Glimpse", Permanent Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y. (2000–present). "AIDS; A Living Archive", co-curated with Jane Rosett part of the exhibit ''Gay Men's Health Crisis: 20 Years Fighting for People with H.I.V./AIDS."Museum of the City of New York, New York, N.Y. (2001). “Offerings,” Museums of World Culture, Goteborg, Sweden (2004/2005); Fowler Museum, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California (2008); Durbin Art Gallery, Durbin, South Africa. "Everyday", Co-curated with Alexandra Juhasz and Hugh Ryan for Visual AIDS, La Mama Galleria, New York, New York, (2016)

Films

''Testing the Limits: New York City'' (Testing the Limits Collective), 1987 ''L is for the Way You Look'' (1991). ''Not Just Passing Through'' (1994). ''Fast Trip, Long Drop'' (1994). ''To Catch a Glimpse'' (1997). ''Doctors, Liars, and Women: AIDS Activists Say No to Cosmo'' (1998). ''Shatzi is Dying'' (2000). ''Monte Cassino'' (2003). '' ex in an Epidemic'' (2011). ''How to Survive a Plague'' (2013). ''Larry Kramer in Love and Anger'' (2015).

Television

''Living with AIDS'', Gay Men's Health Crisis, 1986–1994. ''AIDS Community Television'' (DIVA TV), ACT UP,1991-1996. ''ACT UP Live'', DIVA TV, ACT UP, 1994–1996.

References

External links

* ACT UP. (n.d.
ACT UP Oral History Interviews
. ACT UP. * Juhasz, Alexandra. (1995)
''AIDS TV: Identity, Community, and Alternative Video''.
Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. * New York Public Library. (n.d.

Hosted by ACT UP NY. ACT UP NY. * New York Public Library. (2017)
Gay Men's Health Crisis records, 1975-1978, 1982-1999
New York Public Library Archives and Manuscripts. {{DEFAULTSORT:Carlomusto, Jean 1959 births Living people American HIV/AIDS activists Tisch School of the Arts alumni Filmmakers from New York (state) Activists from New York (state) American LGBTQ film directors LGBTQ television directors American lesbian artists LGBTQ people from New York (state) Members of ACT UP 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists 20th-century American LGBTQ people 21st-century American LGBTQ people