Gran Fury formed out of the AIDS direct action group, ACT UP, to give voice to the political issues surrounding the earliest days of the AIDS crisis in America. This eleven person collective (of which I was a founding member) devised appropriation strategies to simultaneously utilize and critique Madison Avenue vernaculars, and circumnavigate questions of access. Named for the automobile used by the New York City police force (and also sounding like "big anger"), Gran Fury created works for the public sphere that drew attention to medical, moral, and public issues related to the AIDS crisis. Gran Fury produced work ranging from flyers announcing AIDS activist demonstrations to billboards, bus sides and bus shelters that challenged medical facts, public perceptions, and political realities. Gran Fury’s work drew critical praise from both the commercial and art worlds, and is notable for the impact it had on the history of the AIDS crisis. Gran Fury’s body of work is in direct line of descent with Situationist questions, and sits comfortably within the continuum of art that is politically engaged. The work has been featured in public art commissions for The Whitney, The New Museum, The Venice Biennale, Creative Time and The Public Art Fund, in publications like ArtForum, Bomb and The New York Times, and is in the permanent collections of MoMA, The Whitney and The New Museum. In 2012 Gran Fury mounted the first public survey of their work for 80WSE in New York City.