Robert Blanchon (1965–1999) was an American artist born in

Foxboro, Massachusetts Foxborough is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Located in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, it is about southwest of Boston. The population was 18,618 at the 2020 census. "Foxborough" is the official spelling of th ...

. His conceptual artworks often dealt with histories of American Conceptual Art, the politics of AIDS and representations of queer sexuality. Blanchon attended the School of the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

from 1984 to 1989, earning both a BFA and a MFA. While in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, Blanchon was an active participant in the non-profit art scene, curating exhibitions at N.A.M.E. gallery, contributing to

Tony Tasset Tony Tasset is an American artist. His works consists mainly of video, bronze, wax, sculpture, photography, film, and taxidermy. He has had exhibitions in Dallas, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York, Los Angeles, Germany, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Ecuad ...

, et al.'s artist project Anonymous Museum, and designing a poster for the City of Chicago's billboard campaign Art Against AIDS: On the Road. From 1989 to 1994, Robert Blanchon lived in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

and worked in the Communications Department at the

New Museum of Contemporary Art The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-name ...

while producing his photographic, sculptural, performance, and video artworks. He worked in the studio of

Mary Ellen Carroll Mary Ellen Carroll is a conceptual artist who lives and works in New York City. The artist has exhibited at Whitney Museum, Alserkal Avenue in Dubai, Institute of Contemporary Arts, ICA London, MoMA, PS1-New York, The Menil Collection in Houston ...

that was also shared with Charles Brown and Omar Lopez-Chahoud at 480 Canal Street, Suite 703, New York City. This is where he completed many of his early photographic series including the stains, tattoos, and greeting cards series. Also during this period, Blanchon created two of his most widely known and exhibited artworks, "Untitled (self-portrait)" (1991), a series of fourteen

self-portrait Self-portraits are Portrait painting, portraits artists make of themselves. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, the practice of self-portraiture only gaining momentum in the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century ...

s commissioned by street artists, and "Protection" (1992), a letter by the artist to his mother telling her he was

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of '' Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the im ...

positive, juxtaposed with her twelve-page response. He had two solo shows in New York City, at

Artists Space Artists Space is a non-profit art gallery and arts organization first established at 155 Wooster Street in SoHo, Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 1972 by Irving Sandler and Trudie Grace and funded by the New York State Council on the Arts ...

in 1994 and at White Columns in 1995. In 1995, Blanchon moved to

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 ...

to take a position as an artist-in-residence at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...

. Teaching and art-making were from this point forward his main occupations. While in California, he produced the video "let's just kiss + say goodbye" (1995), which was exhibited in national and international film festivals, and he had two major solo shows, one at the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies in 1996 and one at Marc Foxx Gallery in the following year. He worked at UC Irvine until 1997, leaving after being denied a tenure track position despite his popularity with students who voted him Best Teacher in 1996. In the spring of 1998, Blanchon moved back to Chicago to become an artist-in-residence at the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a Private university, private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which gr ...

, and in the fall of the same year, he took another artist-in-residence position at The

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

. During this time he had a solo show of new works of photography and sculpture at the June and John Alcott Gallery in Chapel Hill. The following spring he returned to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to teach a graduate level seminar. By the end of the summer Blanchon was hospitalized due to complications related to

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 ...

, and died on October 3, 1999, at age 33 in the ICU at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. In 2003, The Judith Rothschild Foundation awarded the Robert Blanchon Estate at Visual AIDS the initial funding for the organization of his work and archive.

who is the Executor of The Robert Blanchon Estate partnered with Visual AIDS working with Amy Sadao — the Executive Director of Visual AIDS and Nelson Santos — the Associate Director. Sasha Archibald was hired as the project director for The Robert Blanchon Estate Project. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts provided support for the monograph of Robert Blanchon that was published by Visual AIDS, edited by Tania Duvergne, designed by Danielle Aubert, and distributed by D.A.P. DISTRIBUTED ART PRESS, INC, with essays by Greg Bordowitz and Sasha Archibald. In 2009, Marvin Taylor the Director of the Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University acquired the archive and works in The Robert Blanchon Estate. Marvin Taylor was introduced to The Robert Blanchon Estate and Mary Ellen Carroll through

Julie Ault Julie Ault (born 1957) is an American artist, curator, and editing, editor who was a cofounder of Group Material, a New York-based artists' collaborative that has produced over fifty exhibitions and public projects exploring relationships betwee ...

. The exhibition of Robert Blanchon's work ''YOU MAKE ME FEEL (MIGHTY REAL)'' at the Fales Collection was held from November 19, 2009, until February 26, 2010, and was curated by Sasha Archibald, Tania Duvergne, and Bethany Martin-Breen.

References

External links

Guide to the Robert Blanchon Papers and Collection at the Fales Library, New York University

Exhibition at Golden Gallery, Chicago.
"Revisiting the Provocative AIDS Art of Robert Blanchon"
Jeremy Lybarger, Hyperallergic {{DEFAULTSORT:Blanchon, Robert American performance artists 20th-century American photographers American video artists American conceptual artists AIDS-related deaths in Illinois 1999 deaths 1965 births