Introduction

The first retrospective devoted to the Canadian collective General Idea, High Culture: General Idea uses a selection of some three hundred works to provide a dynamically comprehensive overview of the oeuvre – an oeuvre still haunted by Miss General Idea, a fictive character who was at once muse and object, image and concept.

Founded in Toronto in 1969 by Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal,– both dead in 1994 – and AA Bronson, the trio adopted a generic identity that “freed it from the tyranny of individual genius‟. Their complex intermingling of reality and fiction took the form of a scathing, transgressive and often parodic take on art and society. Treating the image as a virus infiltrating every aspect of the real world, General Idea set out to colonize it, modify its content and so come up with an alternative version of reality.

This non-chronological presentation covers the collective‘s main areas of concern. Themes such as the artist and the creative process, glamour as a creative tool, art’s links with the media and mass culture, architecture and archaeology are addressed. Sexuality as the symbol of a social system to be subverted, and AIDS, as explored in the iconic, tentacular project of that name, are also considered. Paintings, installations, sculptures, photographs, videos, magazines and a TV programme: this exhibition goes to the heart of an authentically multimedia oeuvre that has lost nothing of its freshness and can now be seen as anticipating certain aspects of a current art scene undergoing radical transformation.