General Idea
Life & Work by Sarah E. K. Smith
International With Monument, New York City A slick, market-savvy Conceptual art gallery that opened in New York’ s East Village in 1983, when most other galleries in the area were showing Neo-Expressionist works in distinctly bohemian spaces. Among the artists to show there were Jeff Koons, Peter Halley, and Meyer Vaisman( a co-founder of the gallery, with Elizabeth Koury).
Johnson, Ray( American, 1927 – 1995) A collage and performance artist, early practitioner of mail art, and leading light among New York Pop and Conceptual artists. Studied at Black Mountain College under Josef Albers and Lyonel Feininger, formerly of the Bauhaus, as well as Robert Motherwell. Johnson was a feverishly creative artist, for whom the boundary between art and life was all but non-existent.
Klein, Yves( French, 1928 – 1962) An important figure in the history of Minimal, Pop, and performance art, known for his interest in“ pure colour” and his invention of International Klein Blue, the pigment he used in many of his famed monochrome paintings. He was also a sculptor, writer, and— significantly for a Westerner of his time— judo master.
Krushenick, Nicholas( American, 1929 – 1999) A forerunner to the Pop art movement in America, Krushenick was a painter known for his fusion of Pop art and abstraction. Hard-edged black lines surrounding bright, solid colours in abstract formation characterize his work, particularly of the 1960s. His work is held by major public institutions, including New York’ s Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
Kuchar brothers( American, Mike, b. 1942; George, 1942 – 2011) Twin brothers and experimental filmmakers, active from their teenage years on the New York film scene alongside Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, Ken Jacobs, Michael Snow, and Joyce Wieland. The Kuchars’ renowned 8mm films include I Was a Teenage Rumpot, 1960, and The Devil’ s Cleavage, 1973— ultra-low-budget versions of Hollywood genre movies.
Lamanna, Carmen( Italian, 1927 – 1991) Gallerist in Toronto who opened the pivotal Carmen Lamanna Gallery in 1966. An Italian émigré, Lamanna was a central fixture in the Canadian art scene and represented key artists including General Idea, Ron Martin, Ian Carr-Harris, Paterson Ewen, and Joanne Tod.
Lichtenstein, Roy( American, 1923 – 1997) A significant American Pop artist known for appropriating the forms of comic books. His large-scale paintings enlarge the motifs of his source material, highlighting their artificiality and the compositional rules that govern their appearance. In the 1960s Lichtenstein began to work with offset lithography, the medium of commercial printing.
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