Aa bronson: we are the revolution

AA Bronson 
We are the revolution, 2011 
Serigraph and titanium-coated diamonds on paper 
Three variations: (silver, black, black, black diamonds), 
(red, black, black, black diamonds), 
(green, brown, brown, raw diamonds)  
Each variation in an edition of five, plus two APs, 1 HC, 1 BAT and 1 PP 
217 cm x 117 cm

Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art | Plug In Editions presents a series of silkscreen prints by
 AA Bronson based on his collaborative project Invocation of the Queer Spirits. An edition of fifteen large format prints in three variations is available (five silver, five green and five red).

Between 2006 and 2009, AA Bronson collaborated with artist and academic Peter Hobbs on Invocation of the Queer Spirits, a series of five “performances” in five cities, in which a group of gay men gathered in a secret location at an unannounced time without documentation or an audience. The rituals that resulted are evoked, and invoked, in these prints entitled We are the revolution.

Together Bronson and his collaborators explored various social forms of group therapy, ceremonial magic, the sweat lodge, witchs’ covens, gay heart circles, and 19th century spiritualist séances to create the queer hybrid they entitled Invocation
 of the Queer Spirits. The fourth of these was commissioned by Plug In ICA, and was held in Winnipeg’s abandoned United Army Surplus store in its last days, before it was torn down to construct Plug In’s new home, a state-of-the-art facility that is co-owned by Plug In ICA and the University of Winnipeg.

The intention of the invocation was to welcome the spirits of various marginalized communities from Manitoba’s past and prepare the site as a centre for art and learning in the future.

The prints were originally presented as one of the inaugural exhibitions in Plug In ICA’s new galleries, so that the works were in fact standing in almost the exact location where the photograph was originally taken.

We are the revolution presents an image of Bronson photographed by Winnipeg filmmaker Noam
 Gonick moments before the invocation began. The prints are created with three hits of ink and a final application of titanium-coated or industrial diamonds on Saunders Waterford paper. The sparkle of the diamonds cannot be effectively replicated here in photos of the work.

These prints also refer to the Joseph Beuys self- portrait of 1972, La Rivoluzione Siamo Noi. Like Beuys, Bronson inhabits the multiple personae of artist, educator, activist, and healer to challenge the dominance of the marketplace in a consumer society. Influenced in the late ‘60s by Beuys’s prodigious output of low-cost multiples and his performative and often collaborative approach to making art, AA Bronson went on to found General Idea with his collaborators Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal in 1969. They worked and lived together for 25 years until his partners’ deaths due to AIDS related complications in 1994.

Bronson was the Director of Printed Matter, Inc. from 2004 to 2010 and founded the NY Art Book Fair in 2005 and the LA Art Book Fair in 2013. Bronson now lives and works in Berlin and is the co- director of the Institute for Art, Religion and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

These limited edition prints are available for sale as a fundraising benefit for Plug In’s ongoing program costs, and as such were generously donated to Plug In by the artist.

A publication co-produced by Plug In Editions with Creative Time (New York) expands upon the larger Queer Spirits project and is also available through Plug In Editions.

All prints are signed and numbered by the artist. 

Estimates for framing, crating, and shipping available upon request. Please be in touch with us at info@plugin.org or 204-942-1043.  

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