Infected Images: Collecting and Exhibiting in the Wake of HIV/AIDS

Early on, General Idea’s practice was concerned with how images circulate and multiply. Relocating from Toronto to New York in 1985, AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal landed in the midst of the crisis of medical care and media disinformation that surrounded HIV/AIDS. 

When they made the first of numerous works from the IMAGEVIRUS series in 1986, for which they appropriated Robert Indiana’s popular LOVE lettering, General Idea’s images literally went viral. They infected public spaces as well as collective visual memory. This was followed by “infections” of modernist icons, such as the paintings of Piet Mondrian, who in his aim for “pure” abstraction worked solely with the primary colours red, blue and yellow: a garish, contagious green was thus to spread through the images and is now filling the exhibition spaces of the Gropius Bau. 

At the same time and shaped by this historical context, the Schwules Museum was founded in West Berlin. The guided tour will focus on the stories and art-historical aspects of General Idea’s work in relation to HIV/AIDS, and will then turn to the Schwules Museum’s collecting and exhibition practices. Throughout the day, information material by Berlin-based organisations fighting for the destigmatisation of and education on HIV/AIDS will be provided in the Resonance Room.

Ben Miller is a writer and historian based in Berlin. With Huw Lemmey, he is the author of Bad Gays: A Homosexual History (2022). Since 2018, Miller has been a member of the board of the Schwules Museum, one of the world’s largest independent institutions dedicated to archiving and exhibiting queer histories and visual cultures.

Heiner Schulze is a social scientist working in Berlin. Schulze is a member of the board of the Schwules Museum and is interested in social inequality, inclusive society and remembrance culture, in particular with a focus on queer theirstories, East Germany as well as HIV/AIDS.