General Idea
Life & Work by Sarah E. K. Smith
The Boutique from the 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion 1980
General Idea, The Boutique from the 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion, 1980 Galvanized metal and Plexiglas, containing various General Idea multiples, prints, posters, and publications, 153.7 x 339.1 x 259.1 cm Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
The Boutique from the 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion is an installation that functions as a retail space, playing with ideas of art and commerce while also challenging the viewer’ s typical gallery experience. Taking the form of a three-dimensional dollar sign made of metal, the Boutique was designed to sell General Idea multiples and publications. Many of these multiples, made specifically for and simultaneously with the Boutique, reference props from General Idea’ s video work Test Tube, 1979, such as Double Palette, 1980, and Liquid Assets, 1980, both of which were designed to hold test tube – shaped glasses for cocktails. By embedding commerce within the gallery— and art within commerce— General Idea challenged the idea of the museum as a pure space, uninfected by buying and selling.
The 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion— a fictional edifice the artists proclaimed was destroyed by fire in 1977— referred to in the Boutique’ s title was the focus of General Idea’ s works between 1977 and 1986. In this period General Idea created
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