Julie Ault and David Deitcher illuminate the life and work of the influential art historian, New Museum curator, and Visual AIDS co-founder William Olander (1950–1989). Olander’s exhibitions challenged oppressive institutional boundaries, blew open dichotomies, and boldly confronted discrimination, sexual difference, and AIDS, shaping curatorial practice for decades to come.

Committed to using the New Museum as a platform to challenge the ideological functions of the art world, Olander invited members of ACT UP to design a multimedia installation for the museum’s window on Broadway in 1987. The first museum project to unflinchingly address the AIDS epidemic and the political figures who enabled it, Let the Record Show… became the centerpiece of art historian and critic Douglas Crimp’s impassioned call for “new cultural practices” to respond to AIDS.