For Ailing Artist, AIDS Is ‘About Living’ : Speech: Mark Niblock-Smith says his struggle with the disease has had some positive effects.

IRVINE —  When Mark Niblock-Smith learned in 1986 that he had AIDS, he was a sculptor just one semester away from his graduate degree at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia.

His first impulse was to turn away from creating art, as he told an audience of students and faculty Tuesday at the UC Irvine Fine Arts Gallery, where he spoke as part of A Day Without Art, an international observance of the toll AIDS has taken in the arts community.

“I couldn’t make one more pretty object,” he said. So he left CalArts to pursue a teaching degree at Cal State Los Angeles, thinking “that teaching would be more important than making art.” But he returned to CalArts to finish his art degree when he realized that art “was the most important thing to me. It was my life.”

He went on to create gallery installations and public artworks that have addressed multiple facets of the AIDS issue as well as such issues as homelessness and militarism. His works dealing with AIDS often have combined a didactic side, with harsh statistics and facts, and a softer, more personal side.

“I never want to offend,” he explained. “I want to bring people in through the back door rather than hit them over the head at the front door.”

The bulk of his speech was a slide-illustrated review of his work, starting with his graduate installation at CalArts (a smaller version of which is on display at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa as part of an exhibit called “Artists’ Reflections on AIDS”).

The installation includes text describing a dream he had, flanked by two lists of acronyms in large block letters. One is of acronyms associated with the disease, from ARC (AIDS-related complex) to PWA (persons with AIDS); the other is of organizations that he believes have hindered the fight against AIDS, from the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) to WHO (World Health Organization).

He said that at one point, he decided to stop doing large-scale installations, which are time- and energy-consuming, in favor of smaller studio works and more writing. “As I became more ill,” he said, “I had less control.”

He has continued to create installations, however, including a recent one at El Camino College that gave a vivid illustration of the realities of living with AIDS. As shown in the slides, the cement floor of the exhibit space was strewn with about six months of medical detritus--prescription bottles, syringes, catheters and doctor bills.

On the wall at one end of the gallery was a life-size photo of himself, bare chested, catheter exposed. Mounted on the opposite wall was a vase with a single white rose.

“Right now, it costs about $50,000 a month to keep me walking,” said Niblock-Smith, who lives in Los Angeles. “I’m what is known as a long-term survivor, and we’re very costly to keep around.”

When his condition was first diagnosed, he was told he had ARC, but under current definitions he already had full-blown AIDS. Since the diagnosis, he said, he has made a point of speaking openly and honestly about his struggles with the disease. Tuesday, his voice was strong but he appeared gaunt and, at 34, he walked with the aid of a cane. He told the audience that he is fighting several opportunistic infections and is undergoing chemotherapy for lymphoma (“hence the fashionable haircut,” he said, referring to his almost-bald head).

“I spend 14 hours a day hooked up to a machine. The rest of the time, I’m making art.”

As part of his own struggle, he said he has watched AIDS destroy many of those close to him. “I have lost all my gay male friends,” he said, and now a close female friend is dying. “Nobody wants to be left alone.”

Still, he considers himself among the lucky ones. He was insured through much of his illness, and though the insurance has expired, he said a team of top specialists has pledged not to abandon him.

But more often than not, the health care bureaucracy can defeat those who lack the wherewithal or the education to fight it, he said. “The system is set up so people will give up. It discourages people from fighting for their lives.”

Niblock-Smith asked for questions from the audience but was met with silence. He quickly defused the awkwardness with a little gallows humor: “Want to see my catheter? I could give myself an infusion.”

He said humor is a necessity for survival. But he left no doubt about the seriousness of the impact AIDS has had on his life. “AIDS has been a great teacher to me,” he said at one point. He even said that, given the chance to have been HIV-negative and free of disease, he would accept the disease because it has helped him reach people with his art, and because of the spiritual lessons he has learned.

“As my physical body becomes weaker,” he said, “my spiritual side becomes so much stronger.” Dealing with AIDS “is not about dying, it’s about living.”

And though he said he was “not going to give you a lecture on safe sex,” he is constantly astounded to learn that people continue to have sex without protection.

“You all know the risks. You all read pamphlets. Everybody knows what to do, yet it’s not being done. It’s baffling to me.”

* Mark Niblock-Smith’s work can be seen as part of “Artists’ Reflections on AIDS” in the Art Gallery at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa through Dec. 10 ((714) 432-5726), and at Long Beach Community College, at the Vignes Building in Los Angeles, at the Municipal Art Gallery in Los Angeles as part of “LAX: The Los Angeles Exhibition,” and at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum.

His speech at UCI was given in conjunction with the opening of “The AIDS Show: Community Responses to a Crisis,” work in all media including personal letters and snapshots, which continues through Dec. 11 in the Fine Arts Gallery on campus. Hours: noon to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Free. (714) 856-8351.