General Idea
Life & Work by Sarah E.K. Smith
Key Works: Test Tube
1. As part of their three-month residency, the trio worked with a professional crew to create the piece.
The video was subsequently displayed at the Stedelijk Museum in 1979 in the group's first solo
museum exhibition. Test Tube was, in fact, not broadcast on Dutch television as it appropriated the
medium too closely. However, it was broadcast in Canada, Spain, Switzerland, and the United
States. See “Test Tube,” Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/
film_screenings/11979.
2. AA Bronson, correspondence with author, January 3, 2016.
3. This character was played by Marianne Van Kersen.
4. Mike Kelley and AA Bronson, “Excerpts from a Conversation,” in General Idea Editions
1967–1995, ed. Barbara Fischer (Toronto: Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto at Mississauga,
2003), 284.
Key Works: Nazi Milk
1. This also had a personal connection, as Jorge Zontal’s father was an Auschwitz survivor.
2. The advertisement seems prophetic of the popular 1990s “Got Milk?” advertisements. In fact,
Nazi Milk was inspired by a 1975 Canadian Milk Marketing Board campaign. Luke Nicholson, “Being
Framed by Irony: AIDS and the Art of General Idea” (MA thesis, Concordia University, 2006), 29.
3. General Idea, The Getting Into the Spirits Cocktail Book from the 1984 Miss General Idea
Pavillion, 1980, n.p.
4. For more details on other iterations of Nazi Milk, see the catalogue raisonné General Idea:
Multiples, 1967–1993 (Toronto: General Idea/S.L. Simpson Gallery, 1993).
Key Works: The Boutique from the 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion
1. AA Bronson, correspondence with author, January 6, 2016.
2. AA Bronson, correspondence with author, January 6, 2016.
3. AA Bronson, “Copyright, Cash, and Crowd Control: Art and Economy in the Work of General
Idea,” in General Idea Editions 1967–1995, ed. Barbara Fischer (Toronto: Blackwood Gallery,
University of Toronto at Mississauga, 2003), 25–26.
4. For a detailed discussion of the different ways the Boutique has been displayed, see Lillian Tone,
“Affording the Ultimate Creative Shopping Experience: The Boutique of the 1984 Miss General Idea
Pavillion,” http://artarchives.net/artarchives/liliantone/tonegeneralidea2.html; AA Bronson,
“Copyright, Cash, and Crowd Control: Art and Economy in the Work of General Idea,” in General
Idea Editions 1967–1995, ed. Barbara Fischer (Toronto: Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto at
Mississauga, 2003), 26.
5. Lillian Tone, “Affording the Ultimate Creative Shopping Experience: The Boutique of the 1984
Miss General Idea Pavillion,” http://artarchives.net/artarchives/liliantone/tonegeneralidea2.html.
6. See Lillian Tone, “Affording the Ultimate Creative Shopping Experience: The Boutique of the 1984
Miss General Idea Pavillion,” http://artarchives.net/artarchives/liliantone/tonegeneralidea2.html.
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