The message is back -- this time with tales to tell

There was a time when posters that spelled “AIDS” in bright red letters on a blue and green background seemed to be everywhere. Pasted to kiosks, barricades and buildings, they first showed up on the streets of New York in 1987 and San Francisco in 1988.

Their brilliantly simple design, which stacked four letters in two rows (like children’s building blocks), quickly spread across the U.S. to Canada and Europe, on buses, subways and trams, as well as magazine covers, consumer products and the flashing sign in New York’s Times Square.

Then it disappeared, replaced by advertisements for other things.

Now it’s back, greeting visitors to an engrossing exhibition at Cal State L.A.’s Luckman Gallery, where it serves significantly different purposes.

In its heyday, the poster was an integral part of the social landscape: anonymous, emotionally loaded, open to diverse interpretations. Recognized by the public, it was not seen as a work of art. Most people did not know who designed it. And that didn’t matter. Its snub-nosed beauty packed enough punch to define the times by raising public awareness of AIDS. Its message was more important than its history.

In contrast, the exhibition focuses on the poster’s back-story: the context, biographies and other works by the artists who made it. Organized by Barbara Fischer for the Blackwood Gallery at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, Ontario, “General Idea Editions: 1967-1995” consists of approximately 230 objects -- from blurry photocopies to glossy color posters and beautifully fabricated expanses of wallpaper, as well as witty (and often silly) baubles that would not be out of place on the shelves of museum gift shops. Equal parts marketing exercise and history lesson, the show captures the tenor of our times.

Visitors learn that the AIDS poster played off a 1966 painting by Robert Indiana, which uses similar colors to spell “love.” (In the blink of an eye, the ‘60s became the ‘80s and the Summer of Love became the winter of discontent.) We also discover that the activist icon was the work of Canadian collaborators who called themselves General Idea. That the group had three members: AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal, who worked in Toronto. And that their birth names were Michael Tims (from Vancouver, British Columbia), Ronald Gabe (from Winnipeg, Manitoba) and Slobodan Saia-Levy, a.k.a. George Saia (from Parma, Italy), respectively.

The gymnasium-scale installation is appealingly crowded. A 6-foot strip of wallpaper runs the length of the longest wall, like Brobdingnagian wainscoting for lovers of Op Art. The word “AIDS,” broken in half and endlessly repeated, forms a snazzy pattern that can be read every which way. From top to bottom, and vice versa, the wallpaper spells out “Dada,” “AD,” “is” and “si.” Diagonally, it reads “id,” “did,” “as” and “sas.” Playful word games with all sorts of connotations unwind in the mind’s-eye.

Four huge black flags are mounted at equal distances along the wall. But instead of the skull and crossbones image of pirate mythology, each presents a fluffy, fire-breathing poodle. With gold crowns, collars and claws, the dogs rear up in mock ferocity and goofy, feminine machismo.

The rest of the wall is festooned with prints, magazines, photographic scrapbooks, embroidered emblems and documentation of public projects. There’s even a shopping bag made from a pair of men’s briefs. The balance between the sublime and the ridiculous tips decisively toward the latter.

Rather than the usual wall labels, everything is identified with a four-digit number, from 6701 to 9501. Each corresponds to an entry on a 16-page, double-column checklist, available at the front desk. It takes a moment to figure out the system, but once you do it works smoothly: An overview gradually comes into focus.

The first two numerals signify the year each work was made; the last two distinguish works from the same year. The setup suggests online shopping or inventory checking. Both ideas are welcomed by the exhibition, which prefers the power of mass-marketed products to the solitary uniqueness of traditional art objects.

This format also recalls the work of archivists, librarians and graduate students, who spend long hours checking sources and cross-references. When the immediate appeal of the dazzling display wears off -- after basking in its requisite 15 minutes of fame -- this is a world in which visitors find themselves.

Installed in loose chronological order, “General Idea Editions: 1967-1995” proceeds counterclockwise from the entrance. The early years are filled with scrappy, sometimes student-like projects characterized by no-budget, do-it-yourself verve and, occasionally, bathetic evocations of famous artists.

Mail-art surveys -- which invite respondents to chart their orgasms, vote for the year’s best artists or send back snapshots of themselves contorting their faces -- are among the little nuggets that make this part of the installation satisfying. The same goes for mementos documenting the Miss General Idea Beauty Pageant, a deliciously flippant send-up of art, fashion and fame that the trio staged in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. This section attests to Fischer’s leave-no-stone-unturned approach to historical research, which pays off handsomely. The show is accompanied by a terrific information-packed catalog.

Unfortunately, aside from some funny pictures of friends manipulating their faces, the results of too few of the surveys are displayed. Apparently, the three artists were less interested in gathering and analyzing data than in the idea that their works might circumvent galleries and reach the masses directly.

That’s what happened with the AIDS poster, which is something of a one-hit wonder.

None of General Idea’s other prints has come close to galvanizing audiences. Not 1979’s ill-conceived “Nazi Milk,” which shows a uniformed blond boy with a Hitleresque milk mustache. Nor the 1980 picture of a transvestite drinking a cocktail from a test tube. Nor the three artists dressed as ghouls (1983); rosy-cheeked adolescents in bed (1984); pallid graduates of night school (1989); or stethoscope-wielding guys playing doctor (1992). Most of these images are overshadowed by Gilbert & George’s photographic self-portraits, in which the British artists strike more nuanced, less literal poses, mixing humor and politics with greater sophistication.

In 1990, General Idea took up the cause of baby harp seals. But unlike the AIDS emblem, which spun off all sorts of souvenirs, the cuddly cute harp seal T-shirts, soaps and stuffed toys packed in Styrofoam ice chests came off as a cynical instance of opportunistic marketing not significantly different from corporate capitalism’s business as usual.

In 1994, Zontal and Partz died from AIDS-related illnesses. Bronson now manages the group’s archives and continues to work on his own. “General Idea Editions: 1967-1995” is a poignant and fitting tribute to the trio’s fleetingly fateful dance with fame, anonymity and social impact.

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‘General Idea Editions: 1967-1995’

Where: The Harriet & Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Cal State L.A., 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles

When: Noon to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and Saturdays; closed Fridays and Sundays

Ends: May 14

Price: Free

Contact: (323) 343-6604; www.luckmanfineartscomplex.org