{"id":6337,"date":"2011-12-13T16:20:52","date_gmt":"2011-12-13T16:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/?p=6337"},"modified":"2012-11-30T14:19:47","modified_gmt":"2012-11-30T19:19:47","slug":"haute-culture-general-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/?p=6337","title":{"rendered":"Haute Culture \/ General Idea"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 30, 2011\u2013January 1, 2012
\nART GALLERY OF ONTARIO<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Art Gallery of Ontario is currently home to the exhibition Haute Culture: General Idea<\/em>, which was first exhibited in Paris by French curator Frederic Bonnet. Located on the fourth and fifth floors, Haute Culture<\/em> features work produced by a collaboration of gay male artists including AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal. The works consist of a wide variety of practices and artistic media, many dealing with the artists\u2019 sexual orientation. Ranging from paintings, installations, photographs, drawings and videos, the artwork, devised between 1969 and 1994, forecast aspects of today\u2019s trends in art and media culture.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Baby Maker 3, 1984-1989<\/em>, cromogenic print, 76.2 x 63.5 cm. Collection Fonds national d\u2019art contemporain, France. Image courtesy the Estate of General Idea and the Art Gallery of Ontario.<\/p>\n

Standing outside the doors of the Art Gallery of Ontario is General Idea<\/em>‘s newly installed \u201cAIDS\u201d sculpture, acting as a representative for the exhibition inside. As one walks past this enormous sculpture saturated with coloured graffiti, it is evident that the design of the sculpture \u201cAIDS\u201d is directly imitating and responding to Robert Indiana\u2019s red and blue \u201cLOVE\u201d sculpture, currently on the streets of New York City. The placement of the \u201cAIDS\u201d sculpture is an important and successful part of Bonnet\u2019s exhibition strategy, allowing spectators to contemplate concepts and themes embedded in the exhibition prior to seeing it. Although this sculpture strikes an impression for viewers, its creation in the 1980\u2019s must have been much more shocking and scandalous. Therefore, the historical time frame and context in which this sculpture is exhibited is an important part of how it is received by its audience. Presenting this sculpture in the year 2011 when the term AIDS is no longer alien to the public lessens the shock value.<\/p>\n

Once inside, the fourth floor of the AGO\u2019s contemporary and architecturally-savvy gallery houses a handful of rooms dedicated to exhibiting artwork generated by Bronson, Partz and Zontal. Each room is saturated with a variety of colourful artwork, including a Miss General Idea<\/em> pavilion, heraldry, and installation pieces acting as mini exhibitions in and of themselves. The crisp white walls in this space intelligently bring the artwork and installations to life.\u00a0 One of the rooms in the gallery space is eerily dedicated to the 1971 Miss General Idea<\/em> pageant. The work titled Miss General Idea<\/em> is composed of posters, letters, video footage and clothing from the 1971 pageant, exposed for the audience to see. Although this pageant did exist, \u201cMiss General Idea\u201d did not. There was no winner; it was a show put on by women for the amusement of themselves and men in the 1970\u2019s.\u00a0 Miss General Idea<\/em> represents the intermingling of reality, fiction and parody, linking together thematic ideas embedded in works of art.\u00a0\u00a0 It would be wise for Bonnet to have devised written texts alongside the Miss General Idea<\/em> piece, explaining in further detail the intention behind its existence in a more obvious and straightforward manner for viewers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>General Idea. No Mean Feet, 1973-74, photography, 27.9 x 43.2 cm. Image courtesy Galerie Esther Schipper<\/p>\n

The works of art in Haute Culture: General Idea<\/em> are not organized in a chronological manner; rather they are clustered together in groupings. The groupings may not seem obvious at first. However, after a second walk-through of the exhibition it becomes clear that\u00a0 each is based on a concept or thematic idea.\u00a0 These themes consist of glamour as an artistic tool, the mass media and culture, and sexuality and disease, specifically AIDS. The most successful rooms, in my opinion, are isolated works consisting of bright coloured wallpaper and paintings dedicated to AIDS, illuminating this theme and conceptual idea.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>AIDS <\/em>(Installation view), 1988, acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy The Art Gallery of Ontario, 243.7 x 243.7 cm. Collection of The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Gift of Robert and Lynn Simpson, 1997. Image by Carlo Catenazzi, courtesy of the Art Gallery of Ontario<\/p>\n

Other themes in the exhibition are less obvious, due to the large amount of grouped tightly together. It is unclear whether or not this was done intentionally by the curator. As one walks through the exhibition, the specific artist responsible for creating certain works remains anonymous. For many, this may seem like a curatorial catastrophe. However, when close attention is paid to the exhibition, it becomes clear that Bonnet does this purposefully.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>General Idea. P is for poodle, 1983-1989<\/em>, lacquer on vinyl, 200 x 160 cm. Image courtesy Galerie Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Giroux, Paris<\/p>\n

Quoting Bronson, Partz and Zontal, Bonnet writes, \u201cGeneral Idea<\/em> broke with the concept of the author by adopting a generic title that freed the artists from the tyranny of the myth of the individual genius.\u201d As part of the artists\u2019 motive of being \u201cfreed of individual genius,\u201d it is only fitting that specific artworks exist mysteriously and uncredited throughout the exhibition.<\/p>\n

Throughout the exhibition, beginning outside the doors of the AGO, the theme of AIDS is embedded within each group of work. The word appears in paintings, on walls, and even as an accessory in the Miss General Idea<\/em> installation. Its purpose is, of course, to bring awareness to this disease, which ultimately claimed the lives of two of the three artists who collaborated on the artwork displayed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>General Idea. Playing Doctor, 1992<\/em>, chromogenic print, 76.2 x 53.3 cm. Image courtesy the estate of General Idea.<\/p>\n

However, the use of this disease throughout Haute Culture: General Idea<\/em> is as much metaphorical as it is literal. The exhibition itself becomes a virus inserted into each viewer\u2019s mind in the world of glamour and mass media.<\/p>\n

Amanda Pignotti<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Amanda Pignotti<\/strong><\/p>\n

ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO<\/strong>
\nJuly 30, 2011–January 1, 2012<\/p>\n

The exhibition itself becomes a virus inserted into each viewer\u2019s mind in the world of glamour and mass media.<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98,4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amanda-pignotti","category-features","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6337"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16778,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6337\/revisions\/16778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}