General Idea

General Idea was a Canadian artist collective founded in 1969 by AA Bronson, Felix Partz, and Jorge Zontal, active until the deaths of Partz and Zontal in 1994. Working across performance, publishing, installation, video, and mass media, the collective developed a sustained critique of the art world, celebrity culture, and institutional systems through appropriation, parody, and strategic mimicry.

Publications collected here document the work and reception of General Idea, including catalogues, artist publications, and printed matter through which their practice entered institutional and private circulation.

  • Original 1979 AA Bronson and Peggy Gale, eds., Performance by Artists, Art Metropole, Toronto. Softcover with white ground and bold black title typography, 'Performance by Artists' in large sans-serif type, editors' names below, Art Metropole imprint at foot. Interior page from 1979 Performance by Artists, Art Metropole. Black-and-white photograph of Ulay and Marina Abramovic in a durational performance, two nude figures facing each other with a clothed photographer between them in a narrow doorway.

    AA Bronson & Peggy Gale, eds. — Performance by Artists

    AA Bronson & Peggy Gale, eds. — Performance by Artists