HIV, Mon Amour

The title ‘HIV, Mon Amour’ refers to ‘Hiroshima, Mon Amour’, Alain Resnais 1959 film about a love affair between a French woman and a Japanese man in post – World War II Hiroshima. Like Renais’ film, ‘HIV, Mon Amour’ references the act of love in the context of tragedy on a grand scale.

The image used for the books cover is Andy Warhol’s ‘Big Electric Chair’, done in 1967. This is an interesting choice for two reasons: Warhol the celebrity lived a lifestyle that was somewhere between openly gay and closeted, depending on who you ask. Warhol the artist was a master of appropriation and dry, sardonic wit. Both these factors make the cover image fitting for a book about AIDS with a title so poignantly clever and referential.

Warhol the appropriator has had a huge effect on popular culture: Designer John Sposato cribs not only the electric chair for his cover of Michael Meltsner’s ‘Cruel and Unusual’, but Warhol’s strategy for repetition as well.