AIDS Altarpiece tours U.S

Human tragedy tears communities apart or brings them together. Sometimes it generates remarkable works of art. Witness the Keiskamma Altarpiece, which has been touring North America since 2006, hosted primarily by cathedrals. It was inspired by the Isenheim Altarpiece (ca. 1515) by Matthias Grunewald. The link? Devastating plagues, widely separated by time and space, but connected through personal suffering. In the Grunewald, commissioned by the order of St. Anthony in Alsace for a hospice where the patients were dying of ergot poisoning, the imagery includes Jesus enduring the pain of crucifixion. In the other piece, ordinary residents of Hamburg, a speck of a place on South Africa's pastoral but poverty-stricken "Sunshine Coast," confront the consequences of the AIDS pandemic.

Standing 13 feet high by 22 feet wide, the Keiskamma Altarpiece dwarfs viewers. It reflects the labor of over 120 Hamburg residents, primarily women, and incorporates embroidery, applique and beadwork. The project was conceived by Carol Hofmeyr, a local doctor, artist and activist who had already launched a sewing project and an AIDS treatment center cum hospice. Teams of 10 executed designs on fabric--the workers simultaneously exchanged health advice and support--yielding a tangible and moving representation of their community.

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The work resembles a huge cupboard, featuring a triptych of cloth images stretched onto wooden frames. Hinged panels open outward to reveal a spiritual journey from crucifixion to resurrection and hope, chronicled on two additional interior layers. The exterior panels show a widow in traditional Khosa mourning clothes standing before a cross. She is encircled by scenes of village life, including a cluster of orphans, and is flanked on each side by female elders. These women supplant the figures of Jesus and Saints Sebastian and Anthony shown in the Grenewald. All this rests upon the predella, an immobile lower panel depicting the death and funeral of the son of one of the women.

The first scene swings open to reveal the first set of interior panels, on which are a bountiful wild fig tree and a marvelous swirl of animals along with churchgoers and a local prophet who joyously "walks prayers" in the sand. Beneath that lies the final tableau, where three larger-than-life-size photo transfers show kids being embraced by their grannies. In a place where one-third of adults are infected with HIV, the burden of care for victims and their orphaned offspring is disproportionately borne by these surviving seniors. To either side of them, ethereal landscapes signify burial grounds outside town.

This was all rendered stitch by painstaking stitch, but to glorious effect: as the layers come into view, colors become more vibrant, metallic thread animates images, and designs grow increasingly three-dimensional through stump stitching, beading and wirework. This altarpiece incorporates art and craft, personal healing and community building. It stands both as a memorial to those who have succumbed to HIV/AIDS and a tribute to those who are combating it.

[After making its U.S. debut at St. James Episcopal Cathedral, Chicago, the Keiskamma Altarpiece was shown in Toronto, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. It returns to Chicago, Mar. 25-May 11, before returning to South Africa.]

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