General Idea: Performing Artifice and Circularity Through The 1984 Miss General Idea Pageant and the Imagevirus Project

Abstract

General Idea was an art collective group working out of Toronto and New York City from 1967-1994. Their works were influential in terms of performance, medium specificity, and political action, and broadly impacted the art world as we know it today. In this paper, I seek to understand two artworks which bookend General Idea's career: The 1984 Miss General Idea Pageant and its surrounding concepts, and the Imagevirus project. These pieces differ in medium and execution but through analysis of intention and historical context, reveal narratives which run through General Idea's oeuvre.