General Idea
Life & Work by Sarah E.K. Smith
Key Works: Fin de siècle
1. This show was exhibited at Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart; Centre d’Art Santa Mònica,
Barcelona; Kunstverein in Hamburg; The Power Plant, Toronto; Wexner Center for the Visual Arts,
Ohio State University, Columbus; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
2. AA Bronson, correspondence with author, January 4, 2016.
3. “A Tribute to Felix Partz,” The Arts Tonight, CBC Radio, July 6, 1994, Audio, Film, and Video
Works Series, General Idea fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives, Ottawa.
4. “A Tribute to Felix Partz,” The Arts Tonight, CBC Radio, July 6, 1994, Audio, Film, and Video
Works Series, General Idea fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives, Ottawa.
5. “A Tribute to Felix Partz,” The Arts Tonight, CBC Radio, July 6, 1994, Audio, Film, and Video
Works Series, General Idea fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives, Ottawa.
6. “A Tribute to Felix Partz,” The Arts Tonight, CBC Radio, July 6, 1994, Audio, Film, and Video
Works Series, General Idea fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives, Ottawa.
Key Works: One Year of AZT
1. AA Bronson, correspondence with artist, January 6, 2016.
2. AA Bronson, “AA Bronson on Art in the ’60s,” University of Chicago, February 10, 2012,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXoWTBVVeHc.
3. “A Tribute to Felix Partz,” The Arts Tonight, CBC Radio, July 6, 1994, Audio, Film, and Video
Works Series, General Idea fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives, Ottawa.
Significance & Critical Issues
1. AA Bronson, correspondence with author, January 10, 2016.
2. General Idea, “Three Heads are Better,” FILE Megazine, vol. 4, no. 1 (summer 1978): 14–15.
3. General Idea, “Three Heads are Better,” FILE Megazine, vol. 4, no. 1 (summer 1978): 15.
4. General Idea, “Three Heads are Better,” FILE Megazine, vol. 4, no. 1 (summer 1978): 14.
5. AA Bronson, “AA Bronson Reflects on Sexual Themes in the Work of General Idea,” San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art, n.d., http://www.artbabble.org/video/sfmoma/aa-bronson-reflectssexual-themes-work-general-idea.
6. In Canada this is demonstrated by groups such as VSVSVS and BGL (who represented Canada
at the 2015 Venice Biennale).
7. Speaking to this period, Bronson noted: “In 1969 I had never heard the expression ‘gay.’ My
generation had to dream up what it was to be homosexual in the wake of the sexual revolution, a
revolution in which homosexuality was almost never mentioned, except as a literary device.”
AA Bronson, Negative Thoughts (Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 2001), 58.
Additionally, it is worth noting that the gay and lesbian civil rights and liberation movement had been
going on globally, on numerous fronts, since the 1940s.
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