General Idea
dal 26/1/2006 al 10/3/2006
Segnalato da
26/1/2006
General Idea
Project Arts Centre, Dublin
Carefully selecting a number of key pieces from General Idea's oeuvre, Project will stage works in the gallery and foyer, on the poster site outside of the building and distributed this as mail art. For example the minimal and elegant Luxon V.B. a Venetian blind made out of mirror glass will be reconstructed and installed in the window at the front of the building. Also on display in the archival section of the show, will be a complete set of File magazine.
Irish exhibition
Project is proud to present the first Irish exhibition of the seminal
artist's group General Idea (1968 - 1995) in January 2006. Established by
AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal, for almost thirty years this
group worked with wit, theoretical sophistication and formal flair to
critique and challenge the norms of both high and low culture - earning
them a place within the cannon of the late 20th Century avant-garde.
Carefully selecting a number of key pieces from General Idea's oeuvre,
Project will stage works in the gallery and foyer, on the poster site
outside of the building and distributed this as mail art. For example the
minimal and elegant Luxon V.B. (1973) a Venetian blind made out of mirror
glass will be reconstructed and installed in the window at the front of
the building.
Documents of a conceptual and performance based practice from the group's
early days, when General idea often worked in the context of experimental
theatre, will be represented through rare archival material loaned from
the National Gallery of Canada. This will provide a unique opportunity to
see a record of lesser known but formative projects such as What Happened
(1971) the group's free flowing interpretation of Gertrude Stein's play,
which gave rise, to amongst other things the famous General Ideal Beauty
Pageants. Also on display in the archival section of the show, will be a
complete set of File magazine (which cleverly appropriates the format and
title of Life magazine), and became the main platform for the groups
ideas.
At the end of the 1980s General Idea responded to the AIDS epidemic by
focusing their language based conceptual practice on the semiotic and
social implications of the disease and married this to a form of political
activism. A classic design from this period is General Idea's
appropriation of Robert Indiana's famous Love emblem and its conversion
into the AIDS acronym which produced a logo used both in the museum and
out in the public domain. Perhaps their most well known work, the AIDS
logo wallpaper will be installed floor to ceiling in Project's gallery.
Other aspects of the exhibition will be a new multiple created by AA
Bronson especially for Ireland, which will be for sale, alongside artists
multiples and publications from Art Metropole (a centre for the publishing
and distribution of artist material set up by General Idea in 1974). There
will also be a programme of General Idea's films at the Irish Film
Institute. The overall project is the result of extensive research by Paul
O' Neill and Grant Watson who have co-curated the exhibition in
consultation with General Idea's remaining member AA Bronson.
Opening: January 27
Project Arts Centre
39 East Essex Street 353 -Dublin