AIDS (Reinhardt)

General Idea, AIDS (Reinhardt) #4, oil and beeswax on linen on panel, 60 x 60 in., selling at Phillips General Idea made their first AIDS paintings based on Robert Indiana’s LOVE logo in 1987, in the same Poppy colors as the original. They made a series of Black AIDS paintings, also known as AIDS (Reinhardt), for a summer 1991 show at the Grey Gallery at NYU. Mitchell-Innes and Nash have one, #6, that seems nearly identical to AIDS (Reinhardt), #4, being sold at Phillips. One or the other might be slightly more legible, or maybe that misses the point; even in the slow pan video in raking light, the Phillips but I expect the Phillips painting barely registers an incised outline of a letter, or a section delineated by slight changes in brushstrokes. It makes an actual Reinhardt seem like a landscape on a summer’s day by comparison. But #4 was also owned for a while by Joseph Kosuth, who we can trust knows his way around a monochrome black square. L0t 360, 21 May 2026, General Idea, AIDS…