LOVE / AIDS
In 1967, pop artist Robert Indiana produced his now-iconic LOVE sculpture, which has been installed in dozens of places around the world, mostly in English but also in Hebrew and Italian.
Here is the original, in New York City:
Twenty years later, Canadian art collective General Idea (AA Bronson, Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal) appropriated the visual ubiquity of Indiana's sculpture to draw attention to a dire issue -- AIDS. In the 80s, AIDS was not yet an issue of African humanitarian aid. As an extensive outbreak of AIDS was observed, millions of homosexual men were dying in North America. Mind-numbingly ignorant presumptions were unleashed: that AIDS was a "gay disease" and that it was "God's punishment for sodomy." In fact, before it was called AIDS in 1982, it was called "GRID" -- gay-related immune deficiency.
General Idea, AIDS,
Galerie Stampa, Art Frankfurt, 1988.
If you are in Toronto, the Art Gallery of Ontario has a General Idea gallery in their contemporary collection that features a similar installation of the AIDS work.
In 1994, both Partz and Zontal died of AIDS.
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