Reliquarium 1999

Curator: The overall effect for me is somber, like looking into a cabinet of personal memories, all neatly compartmentalized, yet…fragmented. It is beautiful but there is something a bit melancholic in seeing so much loss memorialized at once. Editor: What you are experiencing speaks to the brilliance of Barton Lidice Benes’s piece, “Reliquarium” created in 1999. Benes, known for his clever and sometimes subversive assemblages, gives us a powerful meditation on loss, remembrance, and the AIDS crisis with this work. Curator: Right, it's mixed media, an assemblage of objects placed within individual compartments. Almost like tiny shrines. Editor: Precisely, reflecting on the historical moment in which it was produced. These objects – medications, bandages, personal trinkets, found images are artifacts of lives affected by AIDS. By arranging them in this grid-like format, Benes calls attention to the collective experience and offers a stark comment on how AIDS had become a deeply medicalized and socially inscribed reality by the end of the 20th century. Curator: You are so right! I get a sense of almost sterile preservation here, but not without affection or regard for these vestiges of a life once lived. Like keepsakes and mementos put together into a collective archive, except there’s that layer of…pathos. Editor: Pathos definitely, but also resistance. By meticulously curating these remains, Benes defies the silence and invisibility that has historically surrounded marginalized communities during public health emergencies. It operates both as art and activist memorial, urging us to remember. Curator: I appreciate your articulation of it as an activist memorial, which provides some insight to the seemingly strange visual background collage of posters. Editor: Yes! This background further contextualizes “Reliquarium” with activist posters and pharmaceutical packaging and adds a final layer to his intersectional portrait of the era. It is a profound reflection. Curator: For sure. Editor: What stands out most to me is how “Reliquarium” asks us to confront the absences and absences of queer life through these remnants. It is a reminder of the fragility of the body but also its inherent capacity for love, beauty, and transformation through artistic intervention. Curator: Beautifully stated, reminding us about the many ways artists address themes of loss, trauma, memory, and healing. Editor: Absolutely.