Kurt Reynolds places a Catholic prayer card of the Virgin Mary in a plastic sachet that also contains a set of rosary beads, though close inspection reveals them to be Retrovir capsules (AZT), an early AIDS drug. Reynolds, an AIDS survivor diagnosed in 1988, was for a long time director of a Boston-based residential program providing housing and support for people living with this disease. His artwork draws our attention to the underrecognized role of women in the response to the AIDS crisis, not only as medical caretakers and activists, but as people who also lived with and died from AIDS-related illnesses. Both of these artists ask us to think about the emotional potency of objects, which can conjure personal and familial narratives, play upon shared memory, and convey our collective experience.

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