General Idea
Life & Work by Sarah E. K. Smith
General Idea also played with the notion of commerce and art by creating boutiques designed to function as retail sites within gallery and museum spaces. These derived from the artists’ consideration of the art world:“ We were observing the beginnings of the blockbuster and the way that the museums were involving themselves with the world of money and marketing,” Bronson said. The Boutique from the 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion, 1980, for instance, was a store counter made of galvanized metal and shaped like a threedimensional dollar sign. The Boutique sold a range of multiples by General Idea. These multiples included objects featured in Test Tube, such as Magic Palette, 1980, a metal tray shaped as a painter’ s palette accompanied by six aluminum cups. Magic Palette was disseminated along with a softcover book, The Getting into the Spirits Cocktail Book from the 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion.
¥ en Boutique, 1991, was another example of General Idea’ s engagement with consumption. Its creation corresponded with the rising economic dominance of Japan at
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the time. The ¥ en Boutique is a play on the shop format. The kiosk( which sporadically offered multiples for sale) was created by the group for museum display. The boutique format continued to hold interest for the group in the 1990s. The final boutique General Idea created was Boutique Coeurs volants, 1994 / 2001.
General Idea, Liquid Assets, 1980, prototype for the edition, brushed aluminum, glass test tube, 27.3 17.8 x 7 cm, photograph by Peter MacCallum. This photograph was featured on the cover of FILE Megazine,“ Special $ ucce $$ Issue,” vol. 5, no. 1( March 1981)
General Idea, Magic Palette, 1980, found object of anodized aluminum cups on chromed-metal palette, object: 5.5 x 19.7 x 14.5 cm, various collections, photograph by General Idea. This photograph of the multiple is featured on the cover of the paperback edition of The Getting into the Spirits Cocktail Book from the 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion, 1980
HIV / AIDS Activism General Idea made a profound contribution to the discourse on HIV / AIDS in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This turn in their art occurred in 1987, when they created a painting for a fundraiser for the American Foundation for AIDS Research( amfAR). In AIDS, 1987, the artists appropriated American artist Robert Indiana’ s( b. 1928) painting LOVE, 1966, replacing the word“ LOVE” with the name of the new disease. The ironic appropriation of Indiana’ s work was, AA Bronson later noted, in“ bad taste. There was no
48 doubt about that.” At the time, other artists were addressing the disease didactically in
their work, in contrast to the more ambiguous statement General Idea made with AIDS.
Despite the initial reaction to the work, General Idea went on to create a series of projects around their AIDS logo, producing these in diverse media, from posters to stamps to rings. They advanced this logo to raise awareness about and combat the stigma and misinformation surrounding AIDS. Bronson stated,“ Part of the hook of it for us was the fact that it involved so many issues, not only health issues, which were
especially acute in the U. S., but also issues of copyright and consumerism.” The artists also continued to raise funds for AIDS charities through initiatives such as
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Installation view of AIDS, 1989, powder-coated metal( steel), with stickers, felt pen, and assorted items added by the public, 201 x 198.8 x 100.5 cm, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, photograph by Pierre Antoine. This installation view shows the sculpture at General Idea’ s Fin de siècle, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, 1992. To the left of the sculpture, Felix Partz is pictured with two unidentified women
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