The three men who comprised the radical Canadian trio General Idea—AA Bronson, Felix Partz, and Jorge Zontal—joined forces in 1969. Their game was satirizing the art world, and appropriating and subverting commercial subjects and motifs. They produced parodies like FILE Megazine, a riff on LIFE Magazine, and their Infected Mondrian saw the Dutch artist’s famous grid repainted a gnarly green instead of the original yellow. In their final years, the trio famously recast Robert Indiana’s LOVE sculpture as AIDS. Only one of the three, Bronson, survives; Partz and Zontal both died of AIDS in 1994. With this blockbuster show of around 200 works, the fringe group goes mainstream. —Elena Clavarino
The Arts Intel Report
General Idea: Retrospective
General Idea, Self-portrait with Objects, 1981–82.
When
Sept 22, 2023 – Jan 14, 2024
Where
Etc
Photo: National Gallery of Canada/© General Idea