Coinciding with World AIDS Day 2021, a new art film by AA Bronson and General Idea will be ‘virally transmitted’ on screens around the world. VideoVirus, a hypnotic, text-based video animation will poignantly mark 40 years since the HIV/AIDS disease was first recorded in 1981, and has been created in collaboration with UNAIDS and Terrence Higgins Trust. Presented by Circa on billboards in London, Seoul and Tokyo, the project comes as international health organisations continue to strive towards achieving zero new HIV transmissions by 2030.
The film will be presented daily from 1–30 December 2021 on London’s Piccadilly Lights (20:21 GMT), Seoul’s Coex K-Pop Square (20:21 KST), and Tokyo’s Yunika Vision (09:00 JST), as well as on the Circa website.
General Idea, an art collaboration between AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal, was first formed in Toronto in 1969. The group’s provocative, activist imagery confronted social power structures and experimented with traditional creative formats.
Top and above: stills from VideoVirus by AA Bronson + General Idea
The installation reimagines their seminal work, Imagevirus, first initiated in 1987 for a global audience. The project was a powerful reworking of Robert Indiana’s iconic Love design of 1966. In sculptures, paintings, videos, posters and shows, General Idea famously substituted the word ‘LOVE’ for ‘AIDS’, rendering starkly visible a then largely ignored crisis. In 1994, both Partz and Zontal passed away from AIDS-related causes.
‘General Idea first developed the concept of viral images in the early 1970s. In the mid-1980s that work became prophetically and tragically true, with the appearance of the HIV virus. In 1987 we exhibited our first AIDS painting and papered lower Manhattan with AIDS posters in the hope of making the image indeed viral,’ said AA Bronson, an artist, healer, curator and sole surviving member of the General Idea art group.
Portrait of artist AA Bronson. 2020
‘Thirty-five years later, and marking the 40th anniversary of AIDS first being recorded, I am honoured to join the Circa platform with this reimagined VideoVirus. General Idea's VideoVirus replicates the spread of HIV to the four corners of the world; it expands General Idea's signature theme of ‘image as virus’ for a global audience.’
Alongside the film, two new prints by AA Bronson + General Idea will be available to purchase via the Circa website. Sales proceeds will be invested in the #Circaeconomy, a circular model that supports their free public art programme and creates life-changing opportunities for the art and culture community.
Harnessing art as a catalyst to reduce stigmas and minimise the risk of people contracting HIV, Circa will also seek to educate audiences online via a programme of talks and informative videos guest-curated by new LGBTQ+ charity and new London-based arts hub Queercircle. To honour the collaboration, a #Circaeconomy grant of £5,000 has been awarded to Queercircle who will deliver an artist-led participatory residency and exhibition with an HIV positive person during their Winter 2022 season.
Still from VideoVirus by AA Bronson + General Idea
Seoul, COEX K-POP Square rendering of VideoVirus, by AA Bronson + General Idea
INFORMATION
-
At PAD Paris, Omar Chakil’s new alabaster works for Galerie Gastou fuses Egyptian heritage and contemporary designWe caught up with the French-Egyptian-Lebanese designer, ahead of his collection’s unveiling at PAD Paris next week
-
Don't miss these five artists at Art Basel Hong KongArt Basel Hong Kong—the glittering intersection of European curatorial expertise and Asia's money-fuelled art swagger—returns for its 2025 edition
-
A Costa Navarino house peeks out amidst olive groves and looks out to ocean viewsThis Greek holiday residence designed by K-Studio is a balances timeless design principles with modernist touches
-
A major Frida Kahlo exhibition is coming to the Tate Modern next yearTate’s 2026 programme includes 'Frida: The Making of an Icon', which will trace the professional and personal life of countercultural figurehead Frida Kahlo
-
A portrait of the artist: Sotheby’s puts Grayson Perry in the spotlightFor more than a decade, photographer Richard Ansett has made Grayson Perry his must. Now Sotheby’s is staging a selling exhibition of their work
-
From counter-culture to Northern Soul, these photos chart an intimate history of working-class Britain‘After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024’ is at Edinburgh gallery Stills
-
Celia Paul's colony of ghostly apparitions haunts Victoria MiroEerie and elegiac new London exhibition ‘Celia Paul: Colony of Ghosts’ is on show at Victoria Miro until 17 April
-
Teresa Pągowska's dreamy interpretations of the female form are in London for the first time‘Shadow Self’ in Thaddaeus Ropac’s 18th-century townhouse gallery in London, presents the first UK solo exhibition of Pągowska’s work
-
Sylvie Fleury's work in dialogue with Matisse makes for a provocative exploration of the female form'Drawing on Matisse, An Exhibition by Sylvie Fleury’ is on show until 2 May at Luxembourg + Co
-
What to see at BFI Flare film festival, 'a rich tapestry of queer experience'As one of the only film festivals to explicitly profile LGBTQI+ cinema, BFI Flare Film Festival remains a unique and beloved event. Here's what to see as it makes its return to London from 19 - 30 March
-
The enduring appeal of Transport for London’s seat designsFrom artist Rita Keegan’s new collage to fashion designer Adam Jones’ Overground suit, TfL moquettes continue to enjoy a cult status
