General Idea Polaroids (Sex and Responsibility), 1976-1978
Set of 9 Chromogenic Polaroids
10,7 x 8,9 cm each (unframed)
51,4 x 45,6 x 3,6 cm (framed)
51,4 x 45,6 x 3,6 cm (framed)
In the early years of their collaboration, from 1968 to 1980, AA Bronson, Jorge Zontal and Felix Partz of the Canadian artist group General Idea produced a large number of photographs in both private and public spaces.
Since its creation fifty years ago, this body of work has been largely unseen, stored in AA Bronson’s archive. Recorded as Appendix B – Ancillary Photographic Work in the forthcoming General Idea Catalogue Raisonné edited by Fern Bayer, the archive of vintage General Idea photographs have come to attention in the 2017 exhibition General Idea: Photographs 1969-1982 organized by MAMCO in Geneva, curated by Lionel Bovier as a reflection on the mediatic and physical versatility of the image.
Polaroids (Sex and Responsibility) consists of a set of nine Polaroids taken by General Idea between 1976 and 1978. It belongs to a series of 26 plus 2 variants, all produced during those years. Each set varies in terms of motifs. This specific work features three portraits of AA Bronson, and one of Jorge Zontal, their face covered in gold leaf directly applied onto the Polaroids. The other photographs picture found images taken from magazines, including one portrait of Adolf Hitler, composing a visual collage.
According to an interview given by General Idea in 1982, the series was “… primarily for a local audience, a photo piece–a narrative that used people we know in roles. They were both untypical works and done for local audiences … very much a photographic concern. It grew out of doing covers for FILE. It was like creating little advertising sets, which also developed into the whole Colour Bar Lounge (1979)…”
(Judy Annear, “An Interview with General Idea,” Art & Text (“Pool-side Issue”), Prahran, 8 (summer 1982–83), pp. 51-52).
Three Polaroid sets from the series are in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
Since its creation fifty years ago, this body of work has been largely unseen, stored in AA Bronson’s archive. Recorded as Appendix B – Ancillary Photographic Work in the forthcoming General Idea Catalogue Raisonné edited by Fern Bayer, the archive of vintage General Idea photographs have come to attention in the 2017 exhibition General Idea: Photographs 1969-1982 organized by MAMCO in Geneva, curated by Lionel Bovier as a reflection on the mediatic and physical versatility of the image.
Polaroids (Sex and Responsibility) consists of a set of nine Polaroids taken by General Idea between 1976 and 1978. It belongs to a series of 26 plus 2 variants, all produced during those years. Each set varies in terms of motifs. This specific work features three portraits of AA Bronson, and one of Jorge Zontal, their face covered in gold leaf directly applied onto the Polaroids. The other photographs picture found images taken from magazines, including one portrait of Adolf Hitler, composing a visual collage.
According to an interview given by General Idea in 1982, the series was “… primarily for a local audience, a photo piece–a narrative that used people we know in roles. They were both untypical works and done for local audiences … very much a photographic concern. It grew out of doing covers for FILE. It was like creating little advertising sets, which also developed into the whole Colour Bar Lounge (1979)…”
(Judy Annear, “An Interview with General Idea,” Art & Text (“Pool-side Issue”), Prahran, 8 (summer 1982–83), pp. 51-52).
Three Polaroid sets from the series are in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.