General Idea AIDS (Lascaux Green Light with Border), 1988
Acrylic on canvas
71 x 71 cm (28 x 28 in)
General Idea's 1988 AIDS (Lascaux Green Light with Border) is from a small series of individual paintings each in a distinct color variation. The series originated in an invitation to create work for the Art against AIDS benefit in 1987, General Idea appropriated the colours and design of Robert Indiana’s widely quoted LOVE (1965), reconfiguring his image to read “AIDS.” Producing wallpaper, stamps, public sculpture, posters, and billboards, General Idea spread its AIDS logo in art institutions and transportation systems throughout the United States and Europe.
As AA Bronson explained, “We want to make the word AIDS normal. . . . By keeping the word visible, it has a normalizing effect that will hopefully play a part in normalizing people’s relationship to the dis ease—to make it something that can be dealt with as a disease rather than a set of moral or ethical issues.”
As AA Bronson explained, “We want to make the word AIDS normal. . . . By keeping the word visible, it has a normalizing effect that will hopefully play a part in normalizing people’s relationship to the dis ease—to make it something that can be dealt with as a disease rather than a set of moral or ethical issues.”