General Idea
AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal - all pseudonyms - came together in 1969 in Toronto to form General
Idea. During their legendary 25-year association, they produced a vast body of award-winning work in
every conceivable medium.
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Pharma©opia, 1992
Installation
(3 helium-filled vinyl blimps illuminated from within, each
in the shape of a pill
each inflated 2 x 5 x 2 meters ; 6 1/2
x 16 1/2 x 6 1/2 feet)
[ selected photographs ]
Cumberland Private Wealth Management, 99 Yorkville Avenue
[In association with Cumberland Private Wealth Management].
General Idea's Pharma©opia was first created for an exhibition in Barcelona, and was
intended as a public intervention on the Ramblas, the popular public walkway which runs through the centre
of the old city. The installation is one of a series of works by General Idea using the pill form as
a sculptural element, and refers directly to the AIDS pandemic, here animated by the colours of the Catalunya
province of Spain: red and yellow. By coincidence, a pharmaceutical conference opened the day the blimps
were unveiled. Despite the lack of didactic explanation, the meaning was abundantly clear.
For the first
time air-borne outdoors in Toronto, these pill/blimps were moored across the street from the site of Toronto's original
Mount Sinai Hospital at 100 Yorkville Avenue (founded in 1923 as The Toronto Hebrew Maternity and Convalescent
Hospital). The building was used subsequently as an "old-folk's" home, and its façade
has now been retained to front a dramatic new condominium highrise, currently under construction.
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