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AIDS wallpaper

Wallpaper
1989 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

In recent years artists have adopted wallpaper for installations, public art projects, and sometimes also to carry political messages. The Canadian artists' collective General Idea designed a wallpaper based on Robert Indiana's famous 'Love' screenprint from 1967, but replaced the letters L.O.V.E. with A.I.D.S. They used this logo to promote Aids awareness in public places and they printed it on carrier bags and posters as well as wallpaper. It has been exhibited in many museums and galleries - including the V&A exhibition 'Graphic Responses to Aids' in 1996. The image gives us an apt metaphor for the action of the HIV virus itself - it is as if the Love motif has been 'infected' and has mutated from something benign to something dangerous; like the cells invaded by HIV it has kept its form but changed its nature. And by repeating the motif in a repeating wallpaper pattern we might see it as imitating the replication of the HIV virus in the host cells. But General Idea also intended something more positive when they reproduced this stark acronym as a wallpaper pattern. Their avowed intention was simply to normalise Aids and to remind us that many people live with Aids, continuing with ordinary routines and domestic lives.

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleAIDS wallpaper (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Screen print on paper
Brief description
Wallpaper by General Idea (Canadian artists' collective: Jorg Zontal, Felix Partz, A.A.Bronson), 'AIDS Wallpaper', colour screenprint, Canada, 1989
Physical description
Length of wallpaper printed with the letters A I D S repeated in a square grid.
Dimensions
  • Full length height: 216cm
  • Width: 68.5cm
  • One drop of the design height: 930mm (Note: includes rolls top and bottom)
  • Roll diameter: 80mm (Note: approximate and liable to change according to how displayed)
Overall dimensions taken from Victoria and Albert Museum Department of Prints, Drawings and Paintings Accession Register for 1994
Style
Credit line
Given by General Idea
Subject depicted
Summary
In recent years artists have adopted wallpaper for installations, public art projects, and sometimes also to carry political messages. The Canadian artists' collective General Idea designed a wallpaper based on Robert Indiana's famous 'Love' screenprint from 1967, but replaced the letters L.O.V.E. with A.I.D.S. They used this logo to promote Aids awareness in public places and they printed it on carrier bags and posters as well as wallpaper. It has been exhibited in many museums and galleries - including the V&A exhibition 'Graphic Responses to Aids' in 1996. The image gives us an apt metaphor for the action of the HIV virus itself - it is as if the Love motif has been 'infected' and has mutated from something benign to something dangerous; like the cells invaded by HIV it has kept its form but changed its nature. And by repeating the motif in a repeating wallpaper pattern we might see it as imitating the replication of the HIV virus in the host cells. But General Idea also intended something more positive when they reproduced this stark acronym as a wallpaper pattern. Their avowed intention was simply to normalise Aids and to remind us that many people live with Aids, continuing with ordinary routines and domestic lives.
Bibliographic references
  • Victoria and Albert Museum Department of Prints, Drawings and Paintings Accession Register for 1994
  • Stephen Coppel, Catherine Daunt, Susan Tallman ; with contributions from Isabel Seligman and Jennifer Ramkalawon The America Dream: pop to the present London : Thames & Hudson, in collaboration with the British Museum, 2017.
Collection
Accession number
E.388-1994

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Record createdJanuary 5, 2006
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