General Idea
Life & Work by Sarah E . K . Smith
AIDS Projects In 1987 the artists were invited by their gallery Koury Wingate in New York ( previously International With Monument ) to contribute to a June exhibition in support of the American Foundation for AIDS Research ( amfAR ). General Idea created a painting , AIDS , 1987 , that mimicked Robert Indiana ’ s ( b . 1928 ) famous painting LOVE , 1966 , but replaced the word “ LOVE ” with “ AIDS .” From this moment on , the majority of General Idea ’ s work focused on addressing HIV / AIDS in ways both explicit and implicit .
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The AIDS logo was central to many of these works , the bulk of which were temporary public art projects , as well as art created for display in museums and commercial galleries . For example , the group created an extensive series of posters , painting installations , a sculpture , and an animation for the Spectacolor Board in Times Square , New York City , all of which were based on the AIDS logo . The group ’ s aim was to use AIDS as a means to name what , at the time , was unnamable : raising AIDS as a topic of discussion in the public sphere .
General Idea ’ s works took a brazen approach to AIDS . In the late 1980s AIDS was a taboo topic and a climate of fear surrounded the disease due to widespread and extreme homophobia . This was because initially the disease was thought to exclusively affect gay men . For instance , in 1981 the first article in the New York Times to address AIDS identified it as a cancer that only affected homosexuals . This was not helped by the fact that inaccurate and inflammatory information about the disease circulated widely
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were not at first understood . Tremendous prejudice — including within the medical community — was widespread given the initial impact of AIDS in the gay community and its sexual transmission . As such , there was a moral dimension to the AIDS pandemic that activists , as well as artists , sought to address .
In 1989 General Idea produced the last issue of FILE Megazine , closing the publication after twenty-six issues over seventeen years . This was the start of a productive but difficult period for the artists . Felix Partz was diagnosed HIV-positive in 1989 ; Jorge Zontal was diagnosed the following year . The artists publicly disclosed their HIV status — Zontal addressed his illness in a 1993 interview on CBC Radio . Such public disclosure was significant given the politics of the era and the stigma associated with the disease .
Partz and Zontal ’ s diagnoses gave a new urgency to General Idea ’ s projects . A key exhibition in the 1990s was the touring retrospective General Idea ’ s Fin de siècle , which focused on the group ’ s works since 1984 , primarily AIDS-related projects . Initiated
by the Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart , Germany , this show toured in Barcelona and Hamburg in Europe and in Columbus , San Francisco , and Toronto in North America in 1992 and 1993 .
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General Idea , AIDS , 1987 , acrylic on canvas , 182.9 x 182.9 cm , private collection
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Robert Indiana , LOVE , 1966 , oil on canvas , 182.6 x 182.6 x 6.4 cm , Indianapolis Museum of Art
General Idea , FILE Megazine , “ Final Issue , The City ,” no . 29 ( 1989 ), offset periodical , eighty-eight pages plus cover , black and white reproductions and spot colour , edition of 1,500 , various collections
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