In the mid-1980s, the Canadian art group General Idea (AA Bronson, Felix Partz, and Jorge Zontal) created a symbol using the acronym AIDS, arranging the letters in a manner that resembled Robert Indiana's famous LOVE logo. This launched Imagevirus, a project of paintings, sculptures, videos, posters, and exhibitions that investigated the term AIDS as both word and image, using the mechanism of viral transmission. The Imagevirus spread like a virus, producing an image epidemic in urban spaces from Manhattan to Sydney. It was displayed as, among other things, a Spectacolor sign in Times Square, a sculpture on a street in Hamburg, and a poster in the New York subway system. In this detailed study of the Imagevirus project, artist and writer Gregg Bordowitz analyzes the work from the perspective of his own involvement with activist art initiatives in New York during the 1980s and 1990s. Bordowitz explores the virus as idea, as tactic, and as identity. General Idea felt compelled to make Imagevirus at a time when AIDS was emerging as a global epidemic affecting gay men disproportionately; when homophobia seemed to drive U.S. AIDS policy; and when the exigencies of AIDS activism created a demand for agit-prop and direct action. General Idea adapted their methods to the new situation, using the threat of viral infection and a poetic understanding of language as their model for artistic production and ideological struggle.

Product Description: Over a two-week period between December '06 to January '07, Amy Sillman and Gregg Bordowitz recorded approximately ten hours of conversation covering topics such as art, philosophy, their practices, their personal histories and their friendship...read more

Product Description: In 2005, the great New York cultural arts organization Creative Time brought together 39 artists, educators and thinkers over a series of intimate dinner parties. Critical conversations were initiated, ideas were discussed and challenged, and all of it was recorded for posterity in Who Cares...read more

Product Description: The first collection of writings by a noted artist and activist whose work has focused on the AIDS epidemic.The HIV epidemic animates this collection of essays by a noted artist, writer, and activist. "So total was the burden of illness -- mine and others' -- that the only viable response, other than to cease making art entirely, was to adjust to the gravity of the predicament by using the crisis as a lens," writes Gregg Bordowitz, a film- and video-maker whose best-known works, Fast Trip Long Drop (1993) and Habit (2001), address AIDS globally and personally...read more

A first compilation of essays and writings by a leading artist and activist reflects diverse aspects of the AIDS epidemic, in a collection that captures the sense of fear engendered by the early days of the AIDS crisis, the experience of having a disease, AIDS as a global problem, and more.