Launching World AIDS Day, 1 Dec 2021, CIRCA presents VideoVirus, a powerful new film by AA Bronson and General Idea. Reimagining their historic Imagevirus for a global audience, the artwork comes to life in a hypnotic video animation that virally transmits their activist message across billboards in London, Milan, New York, Seoul & Tokyo.

Throughout December, CIRCA is proud to partner with UNAIDS and Terrence Higgins Trust to mark 40 years since the disease was first recorded in 1981. A new work by AA Bronson, the sole surviving member of the General Idea art group, draws inspiration from the viral intentions of Imagevirus, which in the mid-1980s spread consciousness of the epidemic by reappropriating Robert Indiana's famous LOVE logo, virally transmitting the AIDS symbol through cities in the form of paintings, sculptures, videos, posters, and exhibitions.

From Imagevirus’ original intention of rendering visible an ignored crisis, today’s VideoVirus colourfully heralds our progress toward the eradication of AIDS, with CIRCA’s global presentation amplifying the commitment by international health organisations to achieve zero new HIV transmissions by 2030.

Artist, healer and curator AA Bronson explains: "General Idea first developed the concept of viral images in the early 1970s. In the mid-80s 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. 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."

General Idea, a collaboration between AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal, began in Toronto in 1969. The group’s transgressive concepts and provocative imagery challenged social power structures and traditional modes of artistic creation in ever-shifting ways until Partz and Zontal’s untimely deaths from AIDS-related causes in 1994.

Born 1946, in Vancouver, Canada, AA Bronson currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Since 1995, he has worked and exhibited as a solo artist, often collaborating with younger generations of artists. From 2004 to 2010, he was the Director of Printed Matter, Inc. in New York, founding the annual NY Art Book Fair in 2005. In 2009 he co-founded the Institute for Art, Religion and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In 2013 he was the founding Director of Printed Matter‘s LA Art Book Fair.

Selected recent solo exhibitions include: AA Bronson: Garten der Lüste, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2018); AA Bronson, Kunsthalle Wichita (2016); AA Bronson’s Garden of Earthly Delights, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg (2015); AA Bronson’s Sacre du Printemps, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz (2015); AA Bronson: Life and Works, University of Toronto Art Centre, Toronto (2014); Tent for Healing, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2013); The Temptation of AA Bronson, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2013); Invocation of the Queer Spirits (with Peter Hobbs), Creative Time, New York (2008).

Recent General Idea solo shows include: Photographs (1969–1982), MAMCO, Geneva (2017); Tiempo Partido/Broken Time, MALBA, Buenos Aires (2017) and Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2016); Haute Culture: General Idea. Une rétrospective, 1969 –1994, Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris and Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2011); General Idea Editions: 1967–1995, which toured to 18 venues between 2003 and 2007. General Idea: Found Formats, Kunsthalle Zurich, Zurich, and Kunstwerke, Berlin, (2006); General Idea, Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburg (2005).

Further recommended reading: Gregg Bordowitz, General Idea: Imagevirus, Afterall Books, 2010.