Philip Monk year be the conclusion of their enterprise? After all, the ultimate Pageant was to be performed that year in Pavillion purpose-built for Pageant and Pavillion were gone. What remained to constitute a crisis? Surely the Pavillion’s destruction counts as a disaster. Yet it was passed over as routine, ac- Review” issue as just one other chapter in General What destroyed Idea’s project. This ambivalence should make us Pavillion? Who is to blame for its destruction? question the concluding alarm in the editorial of an issue of devoted solely to ’s work. The year in review actually constituted the Clandestine smoking amongst the groupies.”1 Ac- Pavillion tually, the Pavillion2 its elements to date. It might as well have been Is this insistence on its destruction a coincidence - or an accident? And was the Pavillion’s destruc- cluded. Actually, the crisis of the editorial was the tion really an accident or was it planned from the announcement of a deviation in their work. No start? Planned as an event or, indeed, as a perfor- longer concerning just the Pavillion, this deviation start was something of a destruction of their system as of the Pavillion’s existence, but destruction was a whole. recognized eventually by General Idea as implicit to their system. Their system sanctioned destruc- a dividing line, a divisive fault line internal to their project. As operative principles, construction and artists play in it? Were they merely naughty boys destruction were integral to the fabrication of their bored with the necessity of playing their scripted roles for six more years until the arrival of the work. The artists were not using the editorial to make a public announcement, they were letting including burning it all down. Or were the artists us in on their secret: crisis was the transformative agent of General Idea’s whole enterprise. Crisis, of the system, that is? The system was reversible however, was not just internal to their work; crisis after all. was the unforeseen: an untimely event, history The destruction of the Pavillion was a crisis itself. Crisis was both internal and external to the work: it was an idea and a reality, controlled we should ask, what constitutes the of a and uncontrolled. Wouldn’t an external crisis be crisis? General Idea could cope with crises. Crises devastating to a regulated system such as General were business as usual. In fact, I would say that crises were the epitome of General Idea’s enter- could cope with crises and turn them to their ad- prise—but of course the artists would be loath to vantage. Crisis was admit it, they who were so much in control. These periodic events initiated the episodes of Nevertheless, they announced the crisis in General Idea’s work. I suggest that they secretly an editorial, an editorial that was meant to be a produced the periodicity of their work. Some cri- - ses were acknowledged, others not. Periodic crises - cult to map the long waves of the capitalist system onto short-term individual artistic practices, given the meaning of it all? Could the

107 Idea’s career is an exemplary model in its embrace perception; for thinking that end products have no General Idea above others, as they stole away to of both crises and capitalism. If contradiction is process, that artworks are static things and not in 3 the motor of the capitalist economy, so it is with the contradictory functions of General Idea’s architectural solidity of the Pavillion - the basis of General Idea’s work in collage cut-up dence art, was reworked and republished. Now of focus,’ thus preventing the successful decipher- made theirs a system in crisis: myth, the original strategies of correspondence art were appropriating not the logo look but the content ing of the text (both visual and written) except on - extended from individualistic to corporate activi- of another, recent Time Inc. publication, . ages in collision.” Cut-up was a continual crisis of This is the story of General Idea as told the stability of the image. generate and stabilize an ongoing body of imagery retreat was still one of Glamour’s4 aggressive strat- through their crises. When we realize that a mirror is an image in as myth”), and from individual icons to collec- egies of disguise. collision with itself, then we understand General So tested legally in the challenging of a brand, they would eventually begin to ask themselves General Idea’s] larger mythological structures, their concern with themselves as artists concerned Their response was twofold. Not quite immedi- cutting remarks for dissolving word lines, then with culture”). erecting the illusion of others: the Pavillion itself, Disengagement was subtle: between Septem- organ of communication within the art scene, a - way of looking at the scene and oneself within of its language operations. Turning the mirror on was no longer a participatory proj- sponse was marginal, the second mainstream. The ect of collective tender solicited through the mail initial function of , which they had functional, made it a machine for keeping a crisis but solely an articulation of General Idea’s plat- (ambiguity, contradiction) in perpetual motion. form. The death of correspondence consolidated age” of their early work. General Idea’s program. longer mirroring a scene, mirrors the mirror.” Of devising, a necessity, really, to get on with their own project: promoting themselves, not a scene. In abandoning a community, though, and turning What was the change of vision that General the mirror on themselves, they were going against received a Idea’s legal battle merely punctuated? It was not the principles of their own formation—or at least printed - the formation of —in the correspondence the obituary of the New York Correspondence was School, or rather a letter from Ray Johnson (and begun to service this network: it was a vehicle for the empire had struck back. So much for semi- bringing about a new crisis. The change was in collecting and disseminating image requests in from the correspondence movement. When the disguised appropriation of popular and corporate the concept of Glamour—or rather Glamour’s order that these subliminal assemblages might be displaced looks, a change in its function. It is hard Correspondence School begun by Sugardada Ray when we slipped into your mailbox disguised as to qualify the concept of Glamour as a crisis, but was a myth of contemporary culture. Johnson remains the recognized forerunner of in- it is not what Glamour exposes but what it hides General Idea were not ready to give up myth, ternational image exchange now in operation,” his and you couldn’t believe it was life.” The sublimi- - abdication was indeed a blow to the movement. think of Glamour as the epitome of General Idea’s - Strategically, General Idea published no requests as of their own that issue, but it took four more issues - stabilizing alternate myths alternate lifestyles,” of - demanded were changes made. General Idea, as in the Pageant, but as a theft that ers.” Initially, the function of myth was to contain Was it a happy accident that correspondence - elevates instead our trio of artists. The discovery art imploded, providing a convenient crisis for ated a change of vision that was already occur- of this theft is no crisis, not even the realization become complementary content,” stated ’s General Idea? Or the cover of one? We have already witnessed the mirror shift that subtly it. The crisis was ever so slight: only a change or - displaced their image from the crowd of corre- tion.” The problem is on our end, a problem of spondence artists, while not ostensibly elevating appearance of changed, but its cover girl however, was disproportionate to the numbers

108 109 loose conglomerate of about eight members, they issue of ? Or were they displacing it to the were reduced to their core group, and it was time to assert the identity of this brand in the art world. The second issue of To sum up General Idea in a crisis, as the art- , was peopled by punks. As people, punks are that the image of a threesome began to be pro- notoriously disruptive. Punks are destructive. In of moted aggressively: hence the collective portraits so publicly embracing punk in this issue of of Deleuze and Guattari’s explosive toolbox here a textual of them as a trio of architects, etc., that would what did General Idea want to destroy? Them- selves, it seems, and all they previously stood discussed or exhibited period of General Idea’s we persist in reading back this group identity to for. There is nothing like self-immolation for a was no longer camp but hard-core. we tend to assume that Glamour is an unchanging on a public stage, as an editorial pretends to be. is not necessarily what is a crisis in their Concluding statements are conclusive, especially work, but this indication of their conversion from in editorials. So we must take this admittedly rifts that continuity smoothes over are crises of more than three-chord statement from General interpretation on our part. Idea seriously: The sentimentalism of late sixties Yet, it was not a reduction in number that was a crisis but its augmentation. Until this coup to the for , the Pavil- rule of three, the numbers one and two dominated lion burned down. The Pavillion had seven more was problematic, to say the least, notably in its in General Idea’s system.5 Not even that many: years to go before its scheduled completion in staggered and out-of-sync translation of key texts. the number one was above all; two was only the of late sixties early seventies essentially surrealistic - aesthetic” refer? Idea merely bored as per the contemporaneous - thologies sustained by it. The Pavillion itself was erected on To thus sum up their work early in a crisis was no had already been surpassed by the author himself a borderline. The borderline did not pre-exist; it else could this statement refer to but the youth- big deal; General Idea had been through crises - ful merry mythmaking of the subliminal kids and before. Actually, burning the Pavillion was an Getting with the postmodernist program along ror or the cut of collage. It was a non-place where their cut-up hijinks: General Idea and their gang? with everyone else was no crisis (in Canada, suddenly one became two, where the selfsame im- Here was inspiration in another, younger genera- to their system from the start; it was the mirror admittedly, General Idea were still ahead of the age transformed into a mirror of itself. (The mirror inverse of construction. Potentially the biggest game). It was what they gave up to get with it was a viral replicating invasion: even identity was that was. Once more, General Idea continued to a conversion process where the artists turned from gang up on themselves, as they had done twice in was the event itself: a perpetual crisis. architects to archaeologists combing the ruins. In becoming three, in becoming a threesome, a bulwark of General Idea’s system. Condemn- The ruins seemed terminal, though; and even earlier sentimental nostalgia. Though not named, General Idea gave up the borderline risk and though General Idea continued to add rooms (The what was under assault was myth itself. Not just hence gave up the crisis. They gave up the event , , they were detached myth but the whole methodology (mythology) of where the one engendered two—all for the trium- dual functions of nostalgia and narcissism, just from an overall system and answered to other their early work: the image bank, correspondence, virate stability of numbers.6 This was the begin- demands and other principles. The archaeological cut-up foundation of their system in motion. ning of the troika’s rule, even though ten years reinvention of the Pavillion- was the basis of the mythological later the poodle disguises of their portrait made ing to do with their original system. - the three appear deceptively subservient. So, after all, number was identity. vision” that aligned word lines to sightlines and This was the beginning of the end, the end of that set up the framework in which General Idea’s Let’s not get sentimental about this rejection. their system as originally conceived. It was the work could be seen: indeed, the sightlines within Textual theory provided a more exploitable model which the Pavillion itself was erected. Punk was a to justify the system’s formalism: for instance, that blunt force that dismantled all this. - began to rule General Idea’s work, and it would ated as quickly as rooms are built.” have room for no others. camp; it was a coping word. Were General Idea

110 111 America. At a time in New York of appropriation art and neo-geo painting, their work had to be reduced to a one-liner; it had to be in your face. Why not just show the copyright sign, stupid, or a Trinitron television test pattern, or brands stripped - of the times. Dumbing it down, however, was not neoconservative fascism and capitalism, may good for the product line; it degraded the overall are manifestos for—but they did not deviate strongest works. from General Idea’s course. The shock of the old market forces forced them to return to the rubble of the Pavillion in order to recover frag- Irony returned with the AIDS works, but the same ruin; it had been transported in time from paintings and posters, this direct image—a logo a machine-design age to a handcrafted era. The artifacts were handcrafted bijoux for a bygone era painting—was not well received by New York when artists were subservient: hence the comple- AIDS activists: they thought the logo was ironic. mentary brilliant parody of themselves as poodles, - whose antics paralleled the antiqued poodle acts depicted in fallen plaster fragments.7 The antique world of the poodle was no over the next few years throughout the global system. Crises return, the second time round Re-materialization of the Art Object” was far sometimes absorbed and articulated to advantage. from the origins of General Idea’s work in the Sadly, the crisis could not be managed this time; de-materialization of the art object.” In fact, back then, General Idea even objected to the market-oriented, historically deterministic bias - image bank artists, they were mythical rather than entitled , is its complexity and clarity. conceptual artists. A little myth turns one away No crisis can deny this. from history, one might say, but a lot brings one back to it. About the Author

Philip Monk is a curator, writer, and currently director of the Art Gallery of York University, Toronto. He is the author of And While I Have Been Living Here Perfectly Still: The Saskia Olde Wolbers Files, Double-Cross: The Hollywood Films of Douglas Gordon, Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins: Project for a New American Century, Spirit Hunter: The Haunting of American Culture by Myths of Violence/Speculations on Jeremy Blake’s Winchester Trilogy, Stan Douglas: Discordant Idea faced a dilemma. Americans didn’t get their Absences, and Disassembling the Archive: Fiona Tan, among 8 So much, it seems, had changed with other publications. postmodernism, and General Idea were so much ahead of their time. Yet they dumbed it down for Notes begin on page 130.

112 that places us in a position to resist this Queer Spirits, 6. 5. See General Idea’s second and third ultimate heteronormativity: [The] Child 35. Hobbs, “The Art of Drifting,” 134. Borderline Cases: Imitation of Life (Mim- remains the perpetual horizon of every 36. “Interview with Anne Pasternak and icry): ...There’s safety in numbers and two acknowledged politics, the fantasmatic AA Bronson,” Invocation of the Queer can have a mind of its own. Our two hands beneficiary of every political interven- Spirits, Creative Time, 2008, http://cre- applauded the engagement and came out tion.... Queerness names the side of ativetime.org/programs/archive/2008/ dueling. In the crack of dawn a narcissus those not “fighting for the children,” the invocation/interview.html. is blooming. All together now, one two, side outside the consensus by which all 37. Hobbs, “The Art of Drifting,” 133. one two, one two. Self Conscious: ...Driv- politics confirms the absolute value of 38. Ibid., 162. ing the wedge down deep through the reproductive futurism (3). 39. Bronson and Hobbs, Queer Spirits, centre and splitting the images in halves. 23. Bronson and Hobbs, Queer 47. There is two of us now to contend with Spirits, 26. 40. Deborah Gould, Moving Politics: now. Two heads are better than one but 24. I am interested in this in part Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight Against AIDS it’s really just one more mouth to feed on. because Bronson meticulously docu- (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, Casting our image in the mirror revealed a ments his work, which is the object of 2009), 258. cast of two. Our very own dialogue to talk decades of critical discourse on which 41. Ibid., 5. to ourselves. We’re not the one we used to I can draw. 42. Bronson also literally wrote the book be. “General Idea’s Borderline Cases,” 25. AA Bronson, “Felix, June 5, 1994,” on queer zines: Phillip Aarons and AA IFEL 2, no. 3 (September 1973), 14, 16. Looking Glass, Secession, 2000, Bronson, eds., Queer Zines (New York: 6. See the 1977 Showcards “Three Heads http://aabronson.com/art/LookingGlass/ Printed Matter, 2008). The publica- are Better” (1–078), “Three Men” (1–079), ( 1, 2, 3 ) Wien8.htm. tion traces a distinctly multi-gender “Group Decision” (1–080), and “Right 26. Deborah Gould, Moving Politics: queer zine history—acknowledging the Hand Man” (1–076): The three of them are Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight Against AIDS impact of feminism in the process—as all each others right-hand man but they (University of Chicago Press, 2009), compared to the recent, more fashion- aren’t taking any chances. If one was lost 421–22. and design-oriented, men’s-interest on the job it would throw off the balance. 27. AA Bronson, “Part 2: HIV-Negative,” wave I refer to here. They know that three’s a crowd and a Negative Thoughts, MCA Chicago, 2001, basic social unit and they’d hate to be http://www.aabronson.com/art/Nega- reduced to a couple. tive/MCAframe.htm. Pages 106–112 7. We are the poodle, banal and effete; 28. Ibid. note our relished role as watchdog, 29. “Introducing Butt Massage at John Philip Monk retriever and gay companion; our wit, Connelly Presents,” John Connelly Pres- Crises (and Coping) in the Work pampered presence and ornamental ents, March 31, 2004, http://aabronson. of General Idea physique; our eagerness for affection com/art/connelly/press_release.htm. and affectation; our delicious desire to 30. Steve Lafreniere, “AA Bronson: 1. “Smoking in Bedlam,” Showcard 1093, be groomed and preened for public ap- Shaman,” Things That Fall, accessed 1977. pearances; in a word, our desire to please: October 23, 2011, http://thingsthatfall. 2. In the performances Hot Property those that live to please must please to com/commercebooks/PIT-shaman.php. (Winnipeg Art Gallery, October 22, 1977) live. General Idea, “How Our Mascots 31. “On Looking in the Mirror and and The Ruins of the 1984 Miss General Love to Humiliate Us,” in General Idea: Finding AA Looking Back: Bill Arning Idea Pavillion (Kingston, November 1977). 1968–1984 (Eindhoven: Stedelijk Van Ab- Interviews AA Bronson,” AA Bronson: 3. Consider your mirror’s feelings. Must bemuseum, 1984), 23. The Quick and the Dead (Toronto: Power it always reflect you? A) Coerce all your 8. The irony disappeared when we moved ( 4 ) Plant; : Morris and Helen mirrors to look at each other. B) Now that to New York in 1986. It was the first year Belkin Art Gallery, 2003), 22. you’ve turned them onto the ultimate we exhibited in the U.S., at the Albright- 32. AA Bronson, “Nayland and AA,” narcissism, steal away your reflection Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, although we MIRROR MIRROR, MIT List Visual Arts while they aren’t watching. Carefully. had been exhibiting in Europe for ten Center, 2002, http://aabronson.com/art/ It’s all done without mirrors. How they’ll years. The American audience wasn’t mirrormirror/lookingglass/video1b.htm. talk about you! The vacuum created by prepared to deal with the complexity of 33. Bronson has collaborated with your invisibility has got to be filled with our narratives. They didn’t want some- women in his projects, especially more words. They’ll talk and talk.... “Are You thing that couldn’t be digested in a split recently; for example, he co-founded Truly Invisible,” IFEL 2, no. 3 (September second. We had to completely rethink the Institute for Art, Religion, and Social 1973), 35. what we were doing for the work to have Justice at Union Theological Seminary 4. “Glamour is a passive defense [whose any meaning, for it to communicate in New York with Kathryn Reklis, and strategies are] simple but evasive: 1. in any way with the New York audi- the Institute’s first exhibition, Compas- Concealment, i.e., separation, postured ence. Snowden Snowden, “Bzzz Bzzz sion (2009–10), curated by Bronson, in- innocence; 2. Hardening of the Target, Bzzz: AA Bronson on General Idea,” cluded several women artists. Bronson i.e., closure of the object, a seeming im- Metropolis M, February/March 2011. Or was also a juror and visiting artist in mobility, a brilliance; 3. Mobility of the as AA Bronson said more directly in 2011 for the inaugural Fire Island Artist Target, i.e., the superficial image hides an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Residency, which is open to applica- an APPARENT emptiness (changing “We had to make that very complex tions from any GLBTQ artist, and to any one’s mind, shifting stance, ‘feminine’ narrative less visible because it was too artist working on queer themes. logic).” “Glamour,” FILE 3, no. 1 (Autumn confusing for America” (UOVO, April/ 34. AA Bronson, “About This Book,” in 1975), n.p. May/June 2008, 205). ( 5, 6 )

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