Artist Avram Finkelstein has been inspired by sociopolitical issues throughout his career. Born in 1952, in the 1980s he became a founding member of the groups Silence=Death Project and Gran Fury, artists’ collectives responding to the AIDS crisis. A new exhibit of his work, “Lifelines: Recent Work by Avram Finkelstein,” is on display at the University of Massachusetts Boston Harbor Art Gallery, including photographs, wood sculptures, and an installation of a worker’s room based on Soviet textiles. The exhibition echoes his earlier themes such as the politics of AIDS, plus a focus on the subjects of family and the middle class. “Lifelines” will be up through March 14. The Globe spoke with Finkelstein recently by phone.