Blood Works: The Sanguineous Art of Robert Sherer

Patient Zero
HIV+ blood on paper
12" x 7" oval
Collection: Jonathan Lerner

Sherer: This image results from my anger at the ignorance and stupidity of humanity. Like Typhoid Mary, Patient Zero refers to an index case or central patient in an epidemiological investigation. Patient Zero is the name given to the gay Canadian flight attendant who purportedly introduced and unknowingly spread HIV in the USA.

I feel tremendous pity for this innocent man. People were cruel when they should have been compassionate. Prudish paranoiacs vilified him as a mass murderer for being sexually active. Religious zealots, seeking fulfillment of biblical prophecies, broadcasted him as the personification of the plague. Religious fanatics are partly to blame for the AIDS epidemic amongst heterosexuals because they spread the idea that HIV was somehow a distinctly homosexual disease. "God’s curse upon the sodomites." How creepy Old Testament of them!

Nondiscrimination Policy:
Despite the wishful thinking of religious zealots, HIV does not discriminate based upon race, creed, color, national origin or ancestry, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, marital status, parental status, or veteran status with its infectiousness. It is a virus that does not know or care about the particular conditions of your life!