General Idea
Life & Work by Sarah E.K. Smith
Friedrich, Caspar David (German, 1774–1840)
One of the major Romantic painters, and the most exemplary of the movement’s
German practitioners. Friedrich’s dramatic landscapes—seascapes and mountains,
forests and farmland—are both realistic and symbolic, painted in meticulous detail but
expressive of the artist’s deeply held mystical and spiritual beliefs.
Happenings
Beginning in the early 1960s, these precursors to performance, film, and video art,
Happenings were associated with George Maciunas and the international art group
Fluxus. These ephemeral performances challenged conventional views of what was
meant by “art,” breaking down the barriers between art and life and subverting
traditional, academic notions of the authority of the artist. Happenings tended to be
collaborations and involve audience participation.
Hay, Deborah (American, b. 1941)
A highly conceptual and experimental dancer and choreographer who has often worked
with largely untrained dancers, though she herself trained with the luminaries Merce
Cunningham and Mia Slavenska. Hay has written four books on her artistic practice and
experiences as a dancer, most recently Using the Sky: A Dance, 2015.
Image Bank, Vancouver
An artists’ correspondence network founded in 1969 in the tradition of the New York
Correspondence School by Vancouver conceptual artists Michael Morris, Gary LeeNova, and Vincent Trasov, who took the respective names Marcel Dot (later, Marcel
Idea), Artimus Rat, and Myra Peanut. Participants exchanged ideas, information, and
materials through the post in a spirit of collaboration, with Morris and Trasov keeping
track of addresses and image requests.
Indiana, Robert (American, b. 1928)
Principally known as a Pop artist (and for his famous LOVE design, featuring the word in
uppercase with a slanted “O”), Indiana was equally important to the development of
hard-edge painting and assemblage art. He has often made text a central part of his
paintings, screen prints, and sculptures.
Intermedia, Vancouver
A short-lived non-profit organization established in 1967 to encourage Vancouver’s
budding art scene and artistic community. Intermedia, which initially went by the name
Intermedia Society, hosted exhibitions, workshops, seminars, and gatherings with the
support of federal arts agencies. It became an important meeting place for artists and a
site of creative exchange, spawning various West Coast artistic and literary movements
before ceasing operations in 1972.
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