General Idea Great AIDS (Cadmium Red Light), 1990/2018

In response to an invitation to create works for the Art against AIDS benefit in 1987, General Idea appropriated the colors and stacked letter design of Robert Indiana’s widely quoted LOVE (1966), re-configuring it to read “AIDS.” Great AIDS (Cadmium Red Light) is part of a series of AIDS paintings conceived by the group in 1990, but only executed by AA Bronson in 2019, 25 years after the death of Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal from AIDS-related causes. The AIDS logo appears mirrored along the canvas’s horizontal and vertical axes. The Great AIDS motif was initially produced as an AIDS Scarf edition, launched in 1991 for the German AIDS Foundation.