At 7:20 a.m., shortly after sunrise, eight volunteers begin to slowly unfold each 32-panel section of the NAMES Project Quilt. A roll call of those dead of AIDS and commemorated in this pliant, fiber memorial is solemnly intoned. An occasional name catches in an emotion-constricted throat and renders our collective self-control a shambles. As the sun rises higher over the Capitol Mall, two images recur: a flower blooming and a flag unfolding; a symbolic beginning and a ceremonial end. Both seem appropriate. Our grief is not just tangible, but public.

Two hours later, the several thousand present at this pre-march ritual are able to view the panels close-up. There are 1920 of the three-by-six-foot rectangles arranged in 60 sections bounded by white canvas walkways. We see panels (or find them by consulting a directory) for the celebrated likes of Rock Hudson and Liberace, but mostly they are dedicated to the unsung, often identified only by first names, initials, nicknames.

The panels are spectacularly colorful and varied, whether quilted or appliqued, drawn on or cut into, bejeweled or collaged. Images of pets, military medals, and drag queens lovingly and sometimes gorgeously coexist with slapdash calligraphy, campy humor, and heart-rending tributes from loved ones. Like the Vietnam War Memorial, the NAMES Project Quilt is shocking for its concreteness; especially when it's the way you learn about the death of an acquaintance. Unlike the Vietnam Memorial's haunting testimony to the facelessness of death, the Quilt is a passionate affirmation of diversity.

From the center of the double football-field-sized (!) work, one felt afloat in a sea of images, surrounded by a variegated garden of color and texture, enveloped by a patchworked crazy quilt complete with surprising intimations of cozy domesticity. (Yes, domesticity.) Blades of grass visible between the panels and the walkways suggested life, as well as verdant grave sites.

This associative richness is part of the Quilt's considerable power and the reason it will remain a potent symbol of a national tragedy. It is also what makes it art. The anti-formalist artistic climate of the 1970s, responsible for feminist ritual, art that exults narrative and autobiography, the elevation of fabric and clay to the materials of art, "Bad" painting, the large-scale environmentalism of Christo et al, and Judy Chicago's Dinner Party, created an artistic context and perhaps a model for this work of mega-art.