General Idea
FILE Magazine, Vol. 6, Nos. 1 & 2 and the 1968-1984 FILE Retrospective Issue, 1984
Artist magazine. Perfect bound, pictorial wraps, offset printed, illustrated throughout, duotone, 146 pp, edition of 3,000. Published by Art Official Inc., Toronto and Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver.
14h x 10 3/4w in / 35.56h x 27.31w cm
GI009
$ 200.00
Special issue published in conjunction with the exhibition "General Idea's 1984" held at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada, June 8 - July 29, 1984. The issue includes a 16 pp. exhibition catalogue and a retrospective compilation from various issues of FILE spanning the years 1972-1981, of "Editorials," "Articles," "bzzz bzzz bzzz" sections, and "Ambiguity without Contradiction." Edited by General Idea, AA Bronson, Jorge Zontal, and Felix Partz. Essays "The New York Corres-Sponge Dance School of Vancouver," "Eat Your Art Out," "How Well Are The Artists Eating?," "Candyland," "The Newest Utopia," "Foundations," "Sometimes Women Have To Carry Banners," "Art City," "Image Bank," "Image Exchange," "Artist's Directory," "Spectrum Research," by General Idea.
General Idea was a collective of three Canadian artists, Felix Partz (1945-1994), Jorge Zontal (1944-1994) and AA Bronson. Active from 1967 to 1994, General Idea were pioneers of early conceptual and media-based art. Their work inhabited and subverted forms of popular and media culture, including boutiques, television talk shows, trade fair pavilions, mass media and beauty pageants and it was often presented in unconventional media forms such as postcards, prints, posters, wallpaper, balloons, crests and pins. Informed by a continuous strategy of self-mythology, General Idea moved their work out of museums and galleries and into the everyday world where they were able to reach a much larger and more diverse audience. Best known for the redesign in 1987 of Robert Indiana's "Love" emblem into a quadrant symbol spelling "AIDS," this colorful repeating logo was transformed into paintings, prints, posters and wallpaper, and it was seen virtually around the world, not only in art galleries and museums, but also on billboards, building exteriors and bus stops.
