General Idea
Life & Work by Sarah E.K. Smith
32. The first artist-run gallery was founded in Montreal in the late 1940s. Intermedia, established in
1967, was the first artist-run centre funded by the Canada Council and set the mould for what an
artist-run centre might be. AA Bronson, correspondence with author, 10 January 2016.
33. See AA Bronson, “The Humiliation of Bureaucrat: Artist-Run Centres as Museums by Artists,” in
Museums by Artists, ed. AA Bronson and Peggy Gale (Toronto: Art Metropole, 1983).
34. AA Bronson notes that in addition to artist-run centres, the Vancouver Art Gallery was one of the
few existing outlets for experimental work in the 1960s and 1970s. AA Bronson, correspondence
with author, January 10, 2016.
35. The artist-run centre took its name from the Art Metropole Building in which it was housed.
Located at 241 Yonge Street in Toronto, this business had been an artists’ supply company.
General Idea appropriated the logo on the façade of the building to use for the letterhead of their
new artist-run centre. AA Bronson, correspondence with author, January 10, 2016.
36. Fern Bayer, Peggy Gale, Art Metropole, “Preamble,” Digital Occasional Paper No. 1,
January 1971–April 2006, 2, Art Metropole’s Publications and Events History with Related
Ephemera, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives, Ottawa,
https://www.gallery.ca/images/content/artmetchron_e.pdf.
37. Art Metropole also published various other books, such as Jeff Wall's book Dan Graham's
Kammerspiel (1991). Writings by artists were also a priority at Art Metropole. AA Bronson,
correspondence with author, 10 January 2016.
38. By the late 1980s, the Art Metropole Collection had grown to such proportions (more than
13,000 items) that it was placed at the National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives, as a gift
from J.A. Smith, Toronto, 1999. AA Bronson, correspondence with author, February 3, 2016.
39. Louise Dompierre, interview transcript, New York City, July 26, 1991: 35, Manuscripts Series,
Manuscripts for Publications and Artworks, General Idea fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library
and Archives, Ottawa.
40. AA Bronson uses the term “connective tissue” in his essay “The Humiliation of the Bureaucrat:
Artist-Run Centres as Museums By Artists,” in Museums by Artists, ed. AA Bronson and Peggy
Gale (Toronto: Art Metropole, 1983).
41. AA Bronson, “The Humiliation of the Bureaucrat: Artist-Run Centres as Museums By Artists,” in
Museums by Artists, ed. AA Bronson and Peggy Gale (Toronto: Art Metropole, 1983), 30.
42. In an interview, Bronson noted the group used local garbage. See Luke Nicholson, “Being
Framed by Irony: AIDS and the Art of General Idea” (MA thesis, Concordia University, 2006), 103;
Fern Bayer, “Uncovering the Roots of General Idea: A Documentation and Description of Early
Projects 1968–1975,” The Search for the Spirit: General Idea 1968–1975 (Toronto: Art Gallery of
Ontario, 1997), 29.
43. For a description of the window displays at 78 Gerrard Street West see Fern Bayer, “Uncovering
the Roots of General Idea: A Documentation and Description of Early Projects 1968–1975,” The
Search for the Spirit: General Idea 1968–1975 (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1997), 29.
44. Mike Kelley and AA Bronson, “Excerpts from a Conversation,” in General Idea Editions
1967–1995, ed. Barbara Fischer (Toronto: Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto at Mississauga,
2003), 284.
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