General Idea @ Kunst-Werke Berlin

reBlogged via Visual AIDS >blog :

General Idea Editions 1967-1995

With the exhibition General Idea Editions 1967-1995 from June 25 to August 20, 2006, Kunst-Werke Berlin presents a retrospective of the Canadian artists' collaborative General Idea and its works. After touring ten cities in Canada and the United States to great acclaim, the exhibition is currently on show in Munich's Kunstverein (until April 16, 2006). Its three-hundred-plus works in different media will then travel to Berlin to be displayed at KW.

Combining critical theory, political activism and Appropriation Art, General Idea gained international fame and a standing as one of the most influential groups in their field during the 1980s and 1990s, when the collaborative used conceptual approaches, 'viral logic' and a parasitic appropriation of popular media in an enormously successful AIDS awareness campaign. The retrospective gives an encompassing survey of the General Idea oeuvre from 1967 to 1995 in all its diversity, its formats including installation, photography, videos and posters as well as publications, editions and banners - the entire spectrum of multiples.

The exhibition also offers visitors access to all editions of FILE, an artists' magazine that reconfigured the format of LIFE magazine, which led to it being banned for some time. The group's video works will be presented at screenings, while talks and discussions want to initiate a contemporary recontextualisation of the artistic strategies and concepts embraced by General Idea.

General Idea Editions 1967-1995  was organized by Barbara Fischer and the tour is organized by the Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto at Mississauga. The show at KW Institute for Contemporary Art is realized by Markus Müller in close collaboration with Barbara Fischer and AA Bronson (General Idea).

General Idea Editions 1967-1995

With the exhibition General Idea Editions 1967-1995 from June 25 to August 20, 2006, Kunst-Werke Berlin presents a retrospective of the Canadian artists' collaborative General Idea and its works. After touring ten cities in Canada and the United States to great acclaim, the exhibition is currently on show in Munich's Kunstverein (until April 16, 2006). Its three-hundred-plus works in different media will then travel to Berlin to be displayed at KW.

Combining critical theory, political activism and Appropriation Art, General Idea gained international fame and a standing as one of the most influential groups in their field during the 1980s and 1990s, when the collaborative used conceptual approaches, 'viral logic' and a parasitic appropriation of popular media in an enormously successful AIDS awareness campaign. The retrospective gives an encompassing survey of the General Idea oeuvre from 1967 to 1995 in all its diversity, its formats including installation, photography, videos and posters as well as publications, editions and banners - the entire spectrum of multiples.

The exhibition also offers visitors access to all editions of FILE, an artists' magazine that reconfigured the format of LIFE magazine, which led to it being banned for some time. The group's video works will be presented at screenings, while talks and discussions want to initiate a contemporary recontextualisation of the artistic strategies and concepts embraced by General Idea.

General Idea Editions 1967-1995  was organized by Barbara Fischer and the tour is organized by the Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto at Mississauga. The show at KW Institute for Contemporary Art is realized by Markus Müller in close collaboration with Barbara Fischer and AA Bronson (General Idea).