- Artistic Epidemiology
Can words and images proliferate like epidemics? Was it possible to “go viral” before the era of You- Tube, Facebook, and Twitter—before the Internet existed? How is the circulation of rumors, ideas, and myths comparable to the spread of infectious disease? In General Idea: Imagevirus, from Afterall Books’s “One Work” series (in which each study treats a single work of art), Gregg Bordowitz examines Imagevirus, a 1987 piece by the Canadian conceptual art group General Idea. First conceived as an individual, striking image, and eventually replicated as a vast array of nearly identical paintings, prints, and sculptures, Imagevirus confronted the AIDS crisis at the height of its frightening international spread. Bordowitz sifts through the group’s influences, searches for clues about their creative process, and chronicles his own critical and personal responses to the project, thoughtfully evaluating Imagevirus as a work of “viral” art. General Idea’s piece, Bordowitz suggests, succinctly unites the representation of physical epidemic with viral modes of cultural proliferation.
General Idea grew out of the countercultural scene that emerged in many Canadian cities in the late 1960s and eventually crystallized into a group of three: Jorge Zontal, Felix Partz, and AA Bronson (all pseudonyms, devised for their art and performance personas). During the 1960s and 1970s, they created ironic, media-savvy performances and pop-art-influenced visual pieces, like FILE Magazine, a parody of the mainstream Life magazine, and the 1971 “Miss General Idea Pageant,” a mock beauty contest staged and filmed as if for television. The trio conceived Imagevirus in the mid-1980s, during a period when they relocated from Toronto to New York, and found themselves at the center of the burgeoning AIDS crisis.
Imagevirus, like many of General Idea’s pieces, originated as a visual riff on an earlier iconic work: in this case, pop artist Robert Indiana’s famous “LOVE” logo. Indiana had arranged the word’s four letters into a square, the “O” tipping diagonally to the right, the other three block letters solidly upright, blazing crimson against a background [End Page 115] of placid blue and green. He first produced the “LOVE” logo in 1964, as a Christmas card commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, but soon, it was everywhere—recreated by the artist in paintings and sculptures, and copied by others, most notably as a 1973 postage stamp.
Seizing upon the simplicity and cultural ubiquity of Indiana’s logo, Zontal, Partz, and Bronson imitated it, replacing the word “LOVE” with the acronym “AIDS,” likewise set in solid red letters, the “D” listing rightwards in an echo of Indiana’s “O.” The first version of General Idea’s “AIDS” logo was a single, six-foot-square painting, which they exhibited in an art show benefiting the Foundation for AIDS Research. As Bordowitz reports, though, the three artists quickly decided that the project was incomplete, concluding that Imagevirus did not have enough impact as an individual work: rather, Bordowitz explains, “it required repetition.” The trio reimagined the piece as a “campaign,” and between 1987 and 1994, they reprinted the logo on posters, stamps, and fabric; sculpted it in steel; inserted it into fake advertisements; and posted it in city streets.
Eventually, General Idea’s “AIDS” logo confronted passersby from an electronic billboard in Times Square; a giant outdoor canvas in San Francisco; on New York City subway cars and the walls of Toronto train stations; and in art galleries in Frankfurt, Barcelona, and Montreal. The group changed their original red lettering for rich purples and yellows, and the background colors mutated accordingly: red, orange, aquamarine. In one version of Imagevirus, “AIDS” is spelled out in gold leaf on a black and white canvas; in others, the word appears in black letters on a black background, or white on white, just barely visible to the careful observer. The three artists fashioned the image into a giant metal sculpture that was displayed around the world, collecting graffiti wherever it went. They created a series of photos that mimicked “Absolut Vodka” ads, depicting the logo plastered to walls and doors, with the caption “Imagevirus...