General Idea
Life & Work by Sarah E.K. Smith
47. AA Bronson, correspondence with author, January 4, 2016.
48. AA Bronson, interview with Paul O’Neill, NDP#3 (2006), 3, http://www.northdrivepress.com/
interviews/NDP3/NDP3_BRONSON_ONEILL.pdf.
49. General Idea later participated in Documenta 8 in 1987.
50. AA Bronson, interview with Paul O’Neill, NDP#3 (2006), 3, http://www.northdrivepress.com/
interviews/NDP3/NDP3_BRONSON_ONEILL.pdf.
51. The 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion toured Europe and Canada in 1984–85, showing at
Kunsthalle Basel; Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; and
Musée d’art contemporain, Montreal.
52. Louise Dompierre, interview transcript, New York City, July 26, 1991: 30, Manuscripts Series,
Manuscripts for Publications and Artworks, General Idea fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library
and Archives, Ottawa.
53. AA Bronson, correspondence with author, January 3, 2016.
54. The year of their New York City relocation is listed in the National Gallery of Canada Library and
Archives, General Idea fonds finding aid as 1985, see “Photographs: Miscellaneous Series,” General
Idea Studio: 136 Simcoe Street, Toronto. 1977–1993. Bronson dates the move to 1986. See
AA Bronson quoted in Philip Monk, “Periodizing General Idea,” Glamour Is Theft: A User’s Guide to
General Idea (Toronto: Art Gallery of York University, 2012), 227.
55. AA Bronson, interview with Paul O’Neill, NDP#3 (2006), 7, http://www.northdrivepress.com/
interviews/NDP3/NDP3_BRONSON_ONEILL.pdf.
56. AA Bronson in conversation with author, August 24, 2015.
57. Louise Dompierre, interview transcript, New York City, July 26, 1991: 6, Manuscripts Series,
Manuscripts for Publications and Artworks, General Idea fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library
and Archives, Ottawa.
58. Observed in the United States in the early 1980s, the term “acquired immune deficiency
syndrome” or “AIDS” was proposed in 1982. AIDS was later understood to be caused by the human
immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. AZT, the first antiretroviral medication used to treat HIV, was not
available until 1987.
59. These works were shown internationally, with many exhibited in commercial galleries in Europe.
Additionally, over seventy temporary public art projects about the AIDS pandemic were commissions
by public art galleries, predominately in Europe. AA Bronson, correspondence with author,
January 4, 2016.
60. AA Bronson, correspondence with author, January 3, 2016.
61. General Idea’s approach, however, was not without critics. Other artists and activists making
work explicitly about the AIDS pandemic critiqued General Idea for creating work that was too coded,
as well as not including information on safe sex. As AA Bronson explains, General Idea’s critics
worried they were exploiting the notoriety of the disease. The group’s age and status as outsiders
(Canadians) contributed to a sense that they were interlopers. AA Bronson, correspondence with
author, January 3, 2016.
62. This article predates the identification of HIV and use of the term AIDS. See Lawrence K.
Altman, “Rare Cancer seen in 41 Homosexuals,” New York Times, July 3, 1981,
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/03/us/rare-cancer-seen-in-41-homosexuals.html.
63. Lawrence K. Altman, “30 Years in We Are Still Learning From AIDS,” New York Times, May 30,
2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/health/31aids.html?_r=0.
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