AA Bronson After General Idea
March 2018
Edition of 40 copies
plus 20 Artist’s proofs and 5 Hors Commerce
Each book is signed and numbered by the artist on the cover
Description:
Oversize format: 47 x 52 cm / 18.50 x 20.47 inches
50 posters spot color printed on 115 grams blue back poster paper bound with micro-perforation for easy tear off
Single color silkscreened cardboard hard cover
Perfect binding with fabric spine
Three Star Books invited artist AA Bronson, the last living member of the Canadian conceptual art collective General Idea to take another look at the wallpaper version of one of their iconic pieces: “AIDS”.
“AIDS” was created following pop artist Robert Indiana’s “LOVE”, a screen print and a sculpture from 1967 in which the letters L.O.V.E. were replaced with the ones of A.I.D.S., appropriating and reintroducing it back into an art context. General Idea has been using techniques of appropriation since 1969, the year they began together, long before the term entered the art world. Since 1987, General Idea's AIDS projects have utilized various advertising venues internationally as sites for art, producing posters, postage stamps, wallpaper, and rear-illuminated signs as a means to introduce the image, as a virus, into the bloodstream of society.
For Three Star Books, AA Bronson has adapted “AIDS” into book form, like a wallpaper sample book, pointing to the fact that the AIDS crisis is far from over. “After General Idea”, contains fifty “ready to tear and distribute” posters that are bound and printed with spot colors on blue back poster paper.