As he took care of his dying partner, AA Bronson came to realize his capacity as a caregiver. The iconic artist will lecture this Monday as a guest at U of T’s Festival of the Arts.
Bronson once formed a third of the collective General Idea in 1969 with fellow artists Jorge Zontal and Felix Partz. The group’s standout accomplishments include FILE Megazine, a pop cultural mutation of Life that enjoyed a 17-year print run.
“AA Bronson’s School for Young Shamans,” an exhibit which recently closed in New York, is a series of collaborations with younger artists, exploring the relationship between art, healing, and sexuality. The centrepiece installation is two adjacent stalls, each designed by a different artist, linked by a glory hole for anonymous sex.
Bronson explained that he likes collaborative work because it connects him to a generation of artists who grew up after the first wave of the AIDS epidemic. “A lot of my own generation isn’t around anymore,” he said. “I’m surrounded these days by a lot of these younger people.”
“That seems to be the role that I’ve taken on in my life, as a kind of mentor. As for shamanism, I think that my methods are rather shamanistic, but maybe it is not important to define that here and now,” he said.
AA Bronson will lecture at 7 p.m. Monday, March 10 at University College, room 140.
