Introduction

Organized in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre and curated for the second year by Annabelle Ténèze, Director of the Louvre-Lens Museum, an exhibition of public artworks unfolds across the Tuileries Garden, in the center of Paris.

The public program includes General Idea's AIDS Sculpture, 1989 – 2021.

General Idea was formed in 1969 by AA Bronson (b. Michael Tims, 1946), Felix Partz (b. Ronald Gabe, 1945-1994) and Jorge Zontal (b. Slobodan Saia-Levi, 1944-1994). Throughout its 25-year-long career, the Canadian group produced an important body of work in various media and formats, which continues to be a reference point for generations of artists around the world. Their works touch upon topics such as archaeology, history, sex, race, illness, and the myth of the group itself. General Idea began making AIDS-related works in 1987 and produced countless installations on this theme until Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal's deaths from AIDS-related illnesses in 1994.

In June 2022, the National Gallery of Canada organized a retrospective of General Idea’s work. The exhibition toured to Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and is currently on view at Gropius Bau, Berlin, through January 14, 2024.

In response to an invitation to create work for the Art against AIDS benefit in 1987, General Idea appropriated the colors and stacked letter design of Robert Indiana’s LOVE (1966), re-configuring it to read "AIDS." Producing public sculptures, paintings, posters, wallpapers, and billboards, General Idea spread its AIDS logo throughout North America and Europe, with the now iconic series. Created at the invitation of the City of Hamburg in 1989, General Idea’s AIDS Sculpture was installed outdoors. The sculpture is intended to collect graffiti and other detritus as part of public dialogue.

Jardin des Tuileries – Domaine National du Louvre
75001 Paris
October 17 – 22, 2023
www.parisplus.artbasel.com
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