“ACT UP München” existed only for a short time. In 1995 they made a poster for public space in the city which said: “Ich nehme immer noch Drogen, weil meine Eltern immer noch CSU wählen!” [I’m still taking drugs, as my parents are still voting for the CSU].
The conservative political party CSU operates only in Bavaria, where its larger counterpart CDU operates in the other fifteen parts of Germany. In the beginning of the AIDS crisis the CSU under Franz Josef Strauss and Peter Gauweiler utilized the spreading panic for their own means, proceeding to randomly close down different saunas and bar clubs for homosexuals and stigmatize prostitutes and drug addicts as “risk groups.” Also the poster by ACT UP München was seen in 1995 by members of the same party as a “insolent remark” and “irresponsible” and it was shortly after pasted over.
Die Aktion von Act Up München in der Abendzeitung in 1995. Philipp Gufler mit dem T-shirt. Das T-Shirt, getragen von einer gemeinsamen Skulptur von Johannes Büttner und Philipp Gufler
In 2013 Philipp Gufler started to research in the self-organized archive Forum Queeres Archiv München on the beginning of the AIDS crisis in Germany and published in 2014 his video installation and artist book “Projection on the Crisis (Gauweilereien in Munich)”.
Since he discovered the news article about the political action, I always liked the poster. So he remade this summer the motive as a t-shirt for a sculpture together with Johannes Büttner. He sold the tee shirts on his Instagram page to his friends and gave all the profit of 1110 Euro so far to the Forum.
We are happy about his initiative and about the support for our work.