BARTON LIDICE BENES (1943–2012)

New York sculptor Barton Lidice Benes, widely known for his body of work dealing with the AIDS epidemic, has passed away at the age of sixty-nine due to AIDS-related complications, reports Paul Vitello of the New York Times_. Benes began creating sculptures out of materials relating to the epidemic—pills and capsules, intravenous tubes, HIV-infected blood, and cremated human remains—after his friends began dying of AIDS and he himself tested HIV-positive. Vitello notes that Benes’s “work dealing with the AIDS epidemic was acclaimed for its raw approach to death. Some of it was so raw that he had difficulty finding art galleries willing to show it.” Benes’s work has now been exhibited internationally and is included in collections of the Art Institute Chicago and the Smithsonian.