General Idea
Life & Work by Sarah E. K. Smith
an artist-run centre in Vancouver, in which General Idea rehearses audience actions, including reactions and exit, in preparation for the pageant.
The 1984 Miss General Idea Pageant was also referenced in the video Cornucopia, 1982, which presents the ruins of the Pavillion. In 1977 General Idea asserted that the Pavillion had been destroyed by fire. Cornucopia appropriated the style of a museum documentary to convey the fictional account of the ruins of The 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion. Along with an authoritative voiceover that conveyed puns and innuendo, the video features spinning ceramic phalluses and drawings of poodles and ziggurats. Through these fragments and images, the video presents the history of the Pavillion. The video also speaks to General Idea’ s larger oeuvre, referencing other projects by the group, including the Colour Bar Lounge.
Many General Idea video projects in the later 1970s and 1980s engaged with television, seeking to subvert some of its most prevalent formats. Pilot, 1977, Test Tube, 1979, Loco, 1982, and Shut the Fuck Up, 1985, were specifically created for public broadcast— fittingly, given the group’ s desire to infect the system.” Pilot, for example, uses the structure of a news show to introduce General Idea and their adoption of the pageant scheme, and incorporates some previous audience-rehearsal footage. Test Tube also engages with several popular television formats, including the news magazine, the infomercial, and the talk show.
General Idea helped to facilitate the development and dissemination of video art in Canada, most significantly by founding Art Metropole in 1974. A Toronto-based artistrun centre still in existence, Art Metropole collected and distributed artist videos in a period when few institutions were engaged in these endeavours. The institution also
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published Video by Artists( 1976), a key survey of video art in Canada edited by mediaart curator and writer Peggy Gale. Throughout their career, General Idea maintained an interest in video and their works kept pace with advancements in the medium.
Installation view of General Idea, Cornucopia: Fragments from the Room of the Unknown Function in the Villa Dei Misteri of the 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion, 1982 – 83, video installation, various elements with videotape Cornucopia, 1982, overall installation 243.8 x 426.7 x 243.8 cm, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, photograph by General Idea. Installation view unknown
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Performance Art Performance art, called body art in the 1960s, used the body in a manner that necessarily highlighted political awareness and was also tied to key developments in alternative theatre.
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The members of General Idea met in Toronto at Theatre Passe Muraille. Founded in 1968 by Jim Garrard, this progressive company was focused on eliminating the barrier between actors and audience. AA Bronson, Jorge Zontal, and Felix Partz— who were in
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