General Idea
Life & Work by Sarah E.K. Smith
Subsequent installations were larger and more intricate, as well as open to
the public, such as the in-house group show Waste Age, 1969, which featured works
by Saia-Levy, Gabe, and Tims, as well as Mary Gardner.
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Many early projects by the
group were executed in ephemeral media, such as mail art, performance, photography,
and film. Members of the household also took part in collaborations while creating
individual projects in this period. For example, Gabe exhibited paintings and Saia-Levy
exhibited photography, and Tims travelled to Vancouver to participate in an experimental
performance.
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AA Bronson stencilling the words “Air, Earth, Fire, Water” on the sidewalk in 1969,
photograph by Jorge Zontal. This action was related to one of the group’s broader
concerns at that time with “Air, Earth, Fire, Water,” which included a newspaper
project and a work entitled Air, Earth, Fire, Water Mantra, 1969, performed at the
exhibition New Alchemy, Elements, Systems, Forces, Art Gallery of Ontario,
Toronto, 1969
General Idea, Air, Earth, Fire, Water, newspaper advertisement in the Toronto Daily
Star (now the Toronto Star), June 8 and 11, 1970, National Gallery of Canada
Library and Archives, Ottawa. For this newspaper project General Idea placed an
advertisement in the personals column each day for one week
In 1970 General Idea participated in their first group exhibition, Concept 70, at
A Space (which was in the midst of transitioning from being Nightingale Gallery) in
Toronto. The group intended to show a work called General Idea. Bronson recounted
that their name emerged as a result of a miscommunication, whereby the gallery listed
the artists as General Idea. “General Idea was the name of one of the first projects we
presented,” he stated, “…but everyone misunderstood and thought it was the name of
the group.”20 They decided to keep it. The name initially had no specific meaning,
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