THE ESTATE OF GENERAL IDEA GI Photographs_FINAL | Page 18

LUX-ON, 1974
From December 1, 1973 through January 3, 1974, the Carmen Lamanna Gallery in Toronto presented General
Idea’s installation Luxon V.B.: a 114-kilo structure made of 168 double-sided mirrored horizontal Venetian blind
(hence V.B.) slats fitted to the window of the gallery. The movable mirrored slats allowed the inside to be reflected
outside and the outside to be reflected inside.
Venetian blinds constitute a key motif in General Idea’s oeuvre. From the Lux-On series of black and white
photographs produced during their exhibition at the Carmen Lamanna Gallery to the iconic V.B. Gowns
(Massing Studies for the Pavillion), the geometrical shape was appropriated by the group in most of their
late 1960s–1970s series of works and became part of the iconography, alongside other such motifs as
poodles, test tubes, cornucopia, etc. The idea of appropriation is central to many of General Idea’s artworks.
During their 25-year career, the group drew on formats and aesthetics from sources in popular culture,
archeology, and fine art. Through mimicry, General Idea played with viewer’s expectations, reworking familiar
forms in order to forward a critical and satirical view of art, culture and media.
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