General Idea | AIDS Ring

General Idea
AIDS Ring
Toronto, Canada: Self-published, 1996
6 × 7 × 4.5 cm
Edition of 100 [+1 AP] signed and numbered copies


General Idea's Imagevirus series began in the mid-1980s with a work that replaced the word LOVE from Robert Indiana's iconic sculpture (which itself began as a greeting card graphic, created for the Museum of Modern Art) with the word AIDS.

Anticipating images going viral by many years, the collective used the graphic as a brand, incorporating it into paintings, posters, wallpaper, postage stamps (a Parkett Edition), chenille crests, t-shirts, flags, subway and bus ads, the cover of the Journal of American Medical Association, etc. The images has been displayed as, among other things, a Spectacolor sign in Times Square, an outdoor sculpture in Hamburg, and a poster in the New York subway system.

This heavy-duty sterling silver ring comes in a box is accompanied by a signed and numbered certificate.

Bruce Labruce's recent signature ring from Jonathan Jewelry (released last fall) acknowledges a debt in both design and execution.

Imagevirus is the subject of an Afterall One Work book by Gregg Bordowitz, which explores the virus as idea, as tactic, and as identity.