{"id":2293,"date":"2011-08-01T20:08:31","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T20:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/?p=2293"},"modified":"2012-01-02T00:15:41","modified_gmt":"2012-01-02T00:15:41","slug":"haute-culture-general-idea-%e2%80%94-a-retrospective-1969-%e2%80%93-1994","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artoronto.ca\/?p=2293","title":{"rendered":"Haute Culture: General Idea \u2014 A Retrospective, 1969 \u2013 1994"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n
Baby Maker 3, 1984-1989, cromogenic print, 76.2 x 63.5 cm. Collection Fonds national d’art contemporain, France. Image courtesy the Estate of General Idea and the Art Gallery of Ontario.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
July 30, 2011 –\u00a0January 1, 2012.<\/strong><\/div>\n
panel discussion: <\/strong>Jackman Hall <\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/strong>Wednesday, November 16\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/strong>ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO<\/strong>
\n317 Dundas Street West,
\nToronto, ON M5T 1G4
\nT:416-979-6648
\nwww.ago.net<\/a>
\nHours: Tue & Thurs \u2013 Sun 10 \u2013 5:30, Wed 10 \u2013 8:30
\n\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u201cThis is the story of General Idea and the story of what we wanted. We wanted to be famous, glamorous, and rich. That is to say, we wanted to be artists and we knew that if we were famous and glamorous we could say we were artists and we would be.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u2014 General Idea, <\/em>excerpt from \u201cGlamour,\u201d FILE Magazine, vol. 3, no. 1, fall 1975.<\/em>\u00a0<\/div>\n

\n<\/strong>The exhibition features 336 works by the groundbreaking multidisciplinary group, including 107 works from the AGO collection, spanning their prolific and influential 25-year career.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/div>\n
Curated by Paris-based independent curator Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bonnet<\/strong>, Haute Culture<\/em><\/strong> is the first comprehensive retrospective devoted to General Idea, a collaboration between artists AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal that began Toronto in 1969. The group\u2019s transgressive concepts and provocative imagery challenged social power structures and traditional modes of artistic creation in ever-shifting ways, until Partz and Zontal\u2019s untimely deaths from AIDS-related causes in 1994.\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u201cGeneral Idea is a truly seminal Canadian artist group whose diverse and increasingly influential production warrants deep and comprehensive consideration,\u201d says Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO\u2019s Michael and Sonja Koerner Director, and CEO. \u201cWe are so pleased to mount an exhibition of their work on this large a scale, as I know that our visitors will find their exuberant and exacting vision to be intensely rewarding.\u201d\u00a0<\/div>\n
Haute Culture<\/em><\/strong> is organized around five themes central to the trio\u2019s production: \u201cthe artist, glamour and the creative process\u201d; \u201cmass culture\u201d; \u201carchitects\/archaeologists\u201d; \u201csex and reality\u201d; and \u201cAIDS.\u201d In addition to the works on view inside the exhibition, the AGO will install the artists\u2019 two-metre-tall AIDS<\/em> sculpture at the corner of Dundas West and Beverley streets.\u00a0 The lacquered metal sculpture, created in 1989, is based on Robert Indiana\u2019s 1970 LOVE<\/em> sculpture and will be on view throughout the exhibition\u2019s run.<\/div>\n
\u201cThrough a prolific creation, General Idea\u2019s body of work reveals a complex combination of reality and fiction, and of parody and rigorous cultural critique,\u201d says Bonnet. \u201cTreating the image as a virus that infiltrates every aspect of the real world, the group set out to colonize it, modify it and so present an alternate version of reality. Their visionary influence has only become more apparent with the passage of time.\u201d\u00a0<\/div>\n
Haute Culture <\/em><\/strong>was first exhibited at the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, from February 11 to May 29, 2011. The AGO\u2019s presentation of the exhibition is curated by David Moos, the Gallery\u2019s former curator of modern and contemporary art, and Georgiana Uhlyarik, the AGO\u2019s assistant curator of Canadian art.\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n
A 224-page hardcover catalogue has been published to coincide with the exhibition. Edited by Bonnet, General Idea<\/em><\/strong> features more than 200 colour and black-and-white reproductions and includes contributions from Bonnet, Bronson and Moos, among others. Published by JRP|Ringier and distributed by Distributed Art Publishers, the publication is available at shopAGO for $44.\u00a0<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
Haute Culture: General Idea \u2014 A Retrospective, 1969 \u2013 1994 <\/em><\/strong>is conceived and organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario in conjunction with the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Art moderne de la Ville de Paris. The exhibition is generously supported by the Volunteers of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Thomas H. Bjarnason & Woodrow A. Wells and Paul E. Bain & Isa Spalding.\u00a0Contemporary programming at the AGO is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n

Contemporary programming at the AGO is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July 30, 2011 – January 1, 2012<\/strong>
\npanel discussion: November 16, Jackman Hall<\/p>\n

ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cGeneral Idea is a truly seminal Canadian artist group whose diverse and increasingly influential production warrants deep and comprehensive consideration,\u201d says Matthew Teitelbaum, <\/p>\n

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