AA BRONSON & REIMA HIRVONEN

These two unique Voodoo dolls are representations of AA Bronson and his husband Mark Jan Krayenhoff van de Leur by Finnish artist Reima Hirvonen (b. 1963). They were produced on the occasion of AA Bronson's solo exhibition at the 10th Gwangju Biennale in 2014.

AA Bronson's doll is constructed from his own Pucci underwear and decorated with ballpoint pen. Hidden inside are human hair, sage, turquoise, and semen. Mark Jan Krayenhoff van de Leur's doll is also made of his underwear, and includes human hair, a dzi stone with 21 eyes, tobacco, sage, semen, and is decorated with multiple faces in ballpoint pen. Both dolls feature male genitals made of fabric.

AA Bronson’s artistic practice has long included elements of shamanism, although this tendency became more apparent after the deaths from AIDS in 1994 of his former General Idea collaborators Jorge Zontal and Felix Partz. At the same time, as Bronson acknowledged: “The 60s obsession with Eastern religions, states of the ecstatic, and theories of radical living and working fit me perfectly. General Idea never presented itself as spiritual, but behind our corporate mask, we were the product of our generation.”