The first Irish exhibition of the seminal artist's group takes place at the Project Art Centre from the 28th to the 11th of March.
Established by AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal in 1968, General Idea worked for three decades with great wit, theoretical sophistication and formal flair to critique the norms of both high and low culture.
The exciting and challenging work of General Idea earned 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 foyer, on the poster site outside of the building as well as distributed as mail art.
Documents of conceptual and performance based practise 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 know but formative projects such as What Happened (1971), the group's free flowing interpretation of Gertrude's Stein's play, which gave rise to the famous General Ideal Beauty Pageants.
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.
Appropriating Robert Indiana's famous Love emblem, General Idea created the classic design of the AIDS logo and the image will be represented on wallpaper installed floor to ceiling in Project's gallery creating a formal background to the presentation of the archive material.
The exhibition will also include a complete set of File magazines, the main platform of the group's ideas, a new multiple created by AA Bronson for sale, multiples and publications from Art Metropole and a programme of General Idea's films at the Irish Film Institute.
Admission is Free.
Opening Hours:
Monday to Saturday: 11am - 7pm
Closed Sundays
Project Arts Centre
39 East Essex Street
Temple Bar
Dublin 2.
Tel: +353 (0) 1 679 6622
Web: Project Arts Centre
