Poster for Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey’s Circus AIDS Benefit, Madison Square Garden, April, 1983.
New York: Gay Men's Health Crisis, Inc., 1983. Poersch, Enno. Poster, 35 x 23 inches. Item #CAT0129b
A scarce poster for an important early AIDS benefit, one of the first AIDS benefits organized by GMHC, taking place a few months earlier than the Rodeo event. GHMC bought all of the tickets from Barnum and Bailey and sold them off for donation prices ranging from $10 to $500. All 17,600 seats sold out. Leonard Bernstein conducted the circus orchestra in a rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner," which Larry Kramer, GMHC founder and playwright, described as “one of the most moving moments [he] had ever experienced.” David Roman, in Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS, describes the event as “unquestionably the most galvanizing early AIDS fundraiser…” The event did much to change attitudes about the crisis, though the event was not covered by The New York Times or other mainstream media outlets. Enno Poersch designed the poster.
Quite scarce, with no examples shown in OCLC. Some light wear, excellent condition overall.
Price: $500.00