General Idea
Life & Work by Sarah E. K. Smith
though it evoked the military and corporations such as General Electric. Bronson
jokingly explained that it referred to the“ general idea” of what the group did and noted that the corporate reference was“ radically politically incorrect at the time.” The name also helped to obscure discrete identities within the group, challenging the myth of the individual artist as genius.
Noting the casual nature of the group, Bronson later explained,“ We were just a group of people having a good time.… We went everywhere together, parties, we always
23 showed up together.” They presented themselves theatrically: they would take special
care to stage their entrance to events, arriving at gallery receptions with an entourage.
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Establishing a Tripartite Identity During the early 1970s, Ronald Gabe, Slobodan Saia-Levy, and Michael Tims assumed pseudonyms. This was a popular practice for artists involved in mail art networks. Initially, Gabe used the names Felicks Partz and Private Partz, before settling on the
25 cheeky name Felix Partz. Saia-Levy’ s name, Jorge Zontal( pronounced“ Hori-zontal”),
came from a song on an old record. Tims’ s AA Bronson derived from a pen name created by the publisher of Bronson’ s pornographic book, Lena, a novel he had written in
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collaboration with Susan Harrison. Tims’ s pseudonym was A. L. Bronson, but friends misremembered it as A. A. Bronson( the punctuation was later dropped).
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General Idea, Inside / Outside General Idea Headquarters, Toronto( detail from the installation Light On), 1971, one of three chromogenic prints on Masonite, overall 20.3 x 76.2 cm, Collection General Idea. This photograph depicts the General Idea headquarters above the Mi-House restaurant at 87 Yonge Street, Toronto, c. 1971
General Idea and friends on the roof of 87 Yonge Street, Toronto, where they lived and worked, c. 1971 – 73, Collection General Idea, photograph by Elke Town. From left, front row: AA Bronson, Randy Gledhill, Daniel Freedman; back row: Granada Gazelle, Jorge Zontal, Felix Partz
In 1970 General Idea moved to 87 Yonge Street, to a loft located above the Mi- House restaurant in the heart of Toronto’ s Financial District. The membership of General Idea in the early 1970s was intentionally amorphous. Partz noted that in the early days,“ We purposely obscured actually, who General Idea was, because we were involved with working and living with a variety of people.… Everybody was seen as
General Idea.”
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