GENERAL IDEA biography
Internationally celebrated artist collaborative General Idea (active 1969-1994) generated an enormous
body of work in media ranging from video, performance and publishing to painting, sculpture and installation.
Over their 25 years together, they held 123 solo exhibitions and were included in 149 group exhibitions
internationally, including the Paris, Sydney, Sao Paulo and Venice Biennales and Documenta.
Early on, the three principals assumed "noms de plume" to reflect new identities as collaborators.
Michael Tims (b at Vancouver 18 June 1946) became AA Bronson; Ron Gabe (b at Winnipeg 23 April 1945;
d at Toronto 5 June 1994) became Felix Partz; and Slobodan Saia-Levy (b at Parma, Italy 28 January 1944;
d at Toronto 3 February 1994) became Jorge Zontal.
Their strengths were diverse. In the mid-1960s Bronson and Partz studied at the University of Manitoba,
Bronson in architecture, writing and editing and Partz in fine arts. Zontal, who grew up in Venezuela,
studied architecture, theatre and film at Dalhousie University, Halifax.
They each separately gravitated to the counter-cultural underground in Toronto in the late 1960s. By
1969 they found themselves living and working together. General Idea focused its creative energies from
the outset on understanding pop culture, and was interested in how the artist, the creative process,
the museum, the media and the audience interact to form culture. To explore these phenomena, General
Idea created a labyrinthine fictional narrative: "Miss General Idea" and "The 1984 Miss
General Idea Pavillion."
From 1970 to 1978, General Idea created performances and installations centred on the construct of the
beauty pageant as a simulacrum and critique of the art world. As the moment for the ultimate 1984 Pageant
approached, General Idea destroyed their fictional pavilion and became "archaeologists" (1979-1987),
searching the ruins for "artifacts." Their work now focused on the object, and performance
vanished.
By 1987 General Idea shifted its focus to the AIDS epidemic. Appropriating Robert Indiana's iconic "LOVE" painting
of 1966, General Idea created the "AIDS" logo, and began a publicity campaign for the previously
unmentionable disease: over the next 7 years (1987-1994) they carried out over 50 temporary public art
installations internationally. Related work followed, including the installation One Year of AZT and One Day of AZT,
and their seminal Fin de siècle, an installation of three baby seal pups stranded on a
vast Styrofoam ice floe.
General Idea published 26 issues of FILE Megazine (1972-1989). In 1974 they founded Toronto's
Art Metropole as a publishing and distribution centre for artists. AA Bronson now works as a solo artist
and continues to exhibit internationally.
Note "The 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion" and "FILE Megazine"
are the nomenclature used by General Idea.
Author, Fern Bayer © Copyright The Canadian Encyclopedia 2000 Copyright © Historica
Foundation of Canada.
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