THE ESTATE OF GENERAL IDEA Life & Work | Page 69

General Idea
Life & Work by Sarah E.K. Smith

LEFT: General Idea, Boutique Coeurs volants, 1994/2001, lacquered metal, glass, 120 x 120 x 118 cm, Collection General Idea. This installation view is from the Boutique
Coeurs volants exhibition at Florence Loewy, Paris, October 20, 2000–March 20, 2001. Boutique Coeurs volants displays eighteen of the General Idea multiple Dick All,
1993 RIGHT: Installation view of General Idea, ¥en Boutique, 1989, various multiples, honeycomb aluminum, enamel paint, three aluminum tripods, video elements (Test Tube,
1979, or alternate), 212 x 315 x 348 cm, Collection Fonds national d’art contemporain, for the collection of Musée national d’Art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris,
photograph by General Idea. This installation view is from General Idea, Galleria Massimo De Carlo Arte Contemporanea, Milan, 1990

General Idea also addressed the global AIDS crisis in works such as Fin de
siècle, 1990. The group filled a gallery with large Styrofoam sheets, creating a landscape
of breaking ice. Within this striking scene, three realistically fabricated harp seal pups sit
innocently, serving as a self-portrait of the artists.
In the 1990s the artists made work about the drugs developed to fight AIDS,
creating installations including One Day of AZT, 1991, and One Year of AZT, 1991.
These two works were often installed in close proximity. One Day of AZT features five
Fiberglas pill capsules while One Year of AZT features 1,825 small pills of vacuumformed styrene. These represented Partz’s respective daily and annual dosages of the
antiretroviral drug AZT. Magi© Bullet, 1992, another pill installation, is comprised of
custom-produced silver helium balloons. These balloons are shaped like pills and
inscribed with General Idea’s name and the title of the work. They fill the ceiling space of
the location in which they are presented and, as the balloons deflate, viewers are
allowed to bring them home.

Multiples
Multiples were a core aspect of General Idea’s work and thought process. These editionbased works were produced for sharing and circulation. They were low-cost, which
meant that they could be distributed in the manner of books, rather than as precious art
objects.26 General Idea’s multiples span a range of materials, from works on paper and
posters to chenille crests, rings, scarves, balloons, placemats, and dinner plates. The
69