General Idea
Life & Work by Sarah E.K. Smith
Fin de siècle 1990
General Idea, Fin de siècle, 1990
Installation of expanded polystyrene with three stuffed faux seal pups
(acrylic, glass, and straw), dimensions variable
Private collection, Turin
The installation Fin de siècle represents General Idea’s poignant commentary on those
struck by the AIDS pandemic. This deeply charged work is also one of the last selfportraits the trio created in their twenty-five-year collaboration. The work was featured in
the group’s 1992–93 touring exhibition of the same name.
1
The large-scale piece comprises a
minimum of three hundred 120 by 240
centimetre sheets of Styrofoam that fill a room,
creating the impression of a large field of
breaking ice. Located within the landscape are
three charming, artificial harp seal pups. This
installation makes reference to a historic
Romantic landscape painting of a shipwreck:
The Wreck of the Hope, 1823–24, also known
as The Arctic Sea, by German artist Caspar
David Friedrich (1774–1840). The artists drew
on the aesthetic of this painting, recreating its
forbidding Arctic Ocean landscape. The insertion
LEFT: Caspar David Friedrich, The Wreck of the Hope (The Arctic Sea), 1823–24, oil on canvas,
96.7 x 126.9 cm, Kunsthalle Hamburg RIGHT: General Idea, Fin de siècle, 1994, chromogenic print
(Ektachrome), 79 x 55.7 cm, edition of twelve plus three artist’s proofs, signed and numbered, various
collections
of faux seal pups in the Arctic scene recalls a
diorama from a natural history museum. Fin de
siècle is an acutely moving work. Viewers are meant to question the placement of the
seal pups—are they playful and cute, or are they a prelude to disaster?2 It is unclear
what fate they will encounter.
The installation can be read broadly in terms of environmentalism. AA Bronson
spoke of the indefinite meanings attached to seals, noting that while environmentalists
were attempting to save the seal population, the Canadian government was offering
42