'Can You Save Superman?' Exhibit Boldly Challenges the Gay Blood Ban

Can You Save Superman?

A bold new exhibit from New York-based artist Jordan Eagles and curated by Eric Shiner, the executive director of Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn, challenges the decades-old policy that bars gay and bisexual men from donating blood in the time of COVID-19. The virtual exhibit that pointedly runs from World Blood Donor Day (June 14, 2020) through World AIDS Day (December 1, 2020) titled Can You Save Superman?investigates the line from the AIDS epidemic through to the current pandemic. It is presented by the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, which amplifies queer art and artists.

For the project, Eagles, who has "explored the aesthetics and ethics of blood as an artistic medium" since the late '90s, according to his bio, incorporates found images from a 1971 Superman comic titled "Attack of the Micro-Murderer," in which the Man of Steel is infected with a super-virus and the citizens of Metropolis rush to donate blood. In line with his exploration with blood, Eagles has splattered the pages of the comic book with the blood of a gay man on PrEP.

View the Can You Save Superman? virtual exhibit here.

American Carnage 6/14-III-IN-ACTION (detail)

2018
10 x 13"
Blood of gay man on PrEP, digital print
Photograph by Kris Graves

Untitled (detail)

"The [Food and Drug Administration] continues discriminatory policies that stigmatize queer blood and the LGBTQ+ community. It is absolutely disgraceful that even during a global pandemic, with massive blood shortages nationwide, that the FDA would continue to institute new policies that have no basis in science and place unnecessary deferral periods on individuals that could otherwise help save lives," Eagles said in a statement to The Advocate.

"Can You Save Superman? appropriates a comic book that's almost 50 years old as a way to draw historical parallels and create new entry points for these crucial and timely policy, health and equality issues, in the era of COVID-19," he added.

2018
84 x 28 x 3"
Original 1971 Action Comics, used blood collection bag with needle, residual blood of gay man on PrEP; plexiglass, UV resin

American Carnage 6/14

Shiner, the former director of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, has an essay accompanying Can You Save Superman? that deftly elucidates Eagles's work. In his text, Shiner encapsulates the terror of the era in which the Reagan administration willfully failed those infected with AIDS while the FDA instituted what would become a lifetime ban on donating blood for many gay and bisexual men.

2018
81 x 53"
Blood of gay man on PrEP, digital print, Dibond

American Carnage 6/14-III-IN-ACTION (detail)

"Now, more than at any point in our lifetime, the challenges facing humanity in light of COVID-19 are fraught with life-or-death decisions that cause a wide range of emotions. Each in our own way, we hope for a fast end to this seemingly endless plague, just as we may secretly wish for a superhero to descend into our midst to rescue us from this unseeable menace," Shiner said in a statement about the exhibit.

"Imagine, if you will for a moment, if that very savior -- the one who can rescue us -- themselves fell victim and needed to be saved. Would you help? Would you be an everyday hero and give up certain cells, antibodies, or life-giving blood? Are you legally able to do so, even if you wanted to help?"

2018
10 x 13"
Blood of gay man on PrEP, digital print

Untitled (detail)

"Sadly, the reality is that many who want to help fight this plague by donating blood and antibody-rich plasma are legally forbidden from doing so because of their sexual orientation. Even in the face of a global pandemic, gay and bisexual men are still precluded from donating blood and plasma due to archaic and homophobic policies* that have their origins in the fear and paranoia of the early days of the AIDS epidemic," Shiner continued.

2018
84 x 28 x 3"
Original 1971 Action Comics, used blood collection bag with needle, residual blood of gay man on PrEP; plexiglass, UV resin

Untitled

Can You Save Superman? is presented in partnership with Visual AIDS, GMHC, Blood Equality, New York City AIDS Memorial, the LGBT Community Center, the New York City HIV Planning Group, and Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts.

2018
84 x 28 x 3"
Original 1971 Action Comics, used blood collection bag with needle, residual blood of gay man on PrEP; plexiglass, UV resin