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Indepth Arts News:
"AA Bronson: Negative Thoughts"
2001-01-27 until 2001-04-22
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Chicago, IL,
USA
The Canadian artist AA Bronson is a
founding member of the Toronto-based
art collective General Idea. Bronson,
along with his partners Felix Partz and
Jorge Zontal, formed General Idea
(active 1969-1994) in the tradition of
other manifesto-established art
movements such as Dada, Futurism,
and Fluxus. Their art explores the
language of commerce and its
attendant vocabulary of contemporary
iconographic images to reveal truths
and hypocrisies obscured by the sharply
honed messages in advertising. Often
in the manner of admen and
marketers, General Idea translates
their own messages into a variety of
media, and ventures into the realms of
publishing, architecture, design,
broadcasting, and filmmaking.
They
have also worked in the traditional art
forms of printmaking and painting, as
well as mail-art, installation and
performance. When Partz and Zontal
contracted the AIDS virus in the 1980s,
General Idea turned their focus toward the AIDS crisis. Among many
provocative AIDS-related works, they designed a logo for the disease
borrowing Robert Indiana’s well-known LOVE design, substituting the
AIDS acronym for the word love. Zontal and Partz died from complications
due to AIDS in 1994. The MCA exhibition will combine several works by
General Idea with new work by Bronson in which he meditates on the
deaths of Zontal and Partz. Bronson will interconnect the theme of Life in
the Age of AIDS in a variety of media and utilizing different resources of
the Museum.
This exhibition is curated by AA Bronson and organized by MCA Assistant Curator
Michael Rooks.
Support for this exhibition is generously provided by Michael A. Leppen and Capri
Capital. Additional funding has been provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs
and International Trade of Canada. Media support provided by The Advocate.
IMAGE:
Playing Doctor, 1992
Courtesy of AA Bronson and
1301 PE Projects and Editions, Los
Angeles
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