AA Bronson, General Idea & Art Metropole 

Together with artist AA Bronson and Gareth Long, PUBLICS co-curates the first exhibition to focus upon the entangled relationship between AA Bronson, the artist group General Idea’s publishing and distribution practice, and one of their most enduring artworks: Art Metropole. The exhibition comprises artworks, publications, rare editions, archival material, and a selection of General Idea films from 1977-85: Pilot (1977); Hot Property (1978/80); Test Tube (1979);  Cornucopia (1982); Loco (1982) and Shut The Fuck Up (1985). PUBLICS will also host a satellite pop-up of Art Metropole’s bookstore throughout the exhibition. 

To celebrate this momentous event, PUBLICS’ next pioneering guest to the Center for Curatorial Thinking is artist AA Bronson, who will join us on November 29th for a PUBLICS talk with Gareth Long to open the exhibition from 5.30pm onwards.

Established in 1974, Art Metropole operates the oldest and longest-running artist-run centre that publishes, promotes, exhibits, archives, and distributes artists’ books, multiples, and related media in the world. The exhibition design centres around an installation artwork by Long providing a space for looking, reading and lounging at PUBLICS Library in Helsinki.

AA Bronson (born Michael Tims, 1946) was one of the founding members of artist group General Idea, together with Felix Partz (born Ronald Gabe, 1945–1994), and Jorge Zontal (born Slobodan Saia-Levy, 1944–1994). The three met in Toronto in 1969, drawn to the city’s blossoming countercultural scene. General Idea started as an anonymous group before crystallising into an intentional three-part group.

Art Metropole was founded in 1974 by General Idea as a division of Art-Official Inc., (est. 1972). Art-Official’s founding mission was to facilitate and document collaboration and exchange of ideas between artists, and served as the non-profit publisher of General Idea’s File Magazine (1972–1989). Art Metropole was conceived as a related artist-run centre and collection agency devoted to the documentation, archiving and distribution of all the images.

BIOS

AA Bronson

AA Bronson is an artist living and working in Toronto and Berlin. In the sixties, he left University with a group of friends to found a free school, a commune, and an underground newspaper. This led him into an adventure with gestalt therapy, radical education, and independent publishing.

In 1969 he formed the artists’ group General Idea with Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal. For the next 25 years they produced the living artwork of being together, undertaking over 100 solo exhibitions, and countless group shows and temporary public art projects. They were known for their magazine FILE (1972-1989), their unrelenting production of low-cost multiples, and their early involvement in punk, queer theory, and AIDS activism.

 In 1974 they founded Art Metropole, Toronto, a distribution center and archive for artists’ books, audio, video, and multiples, which they conceived as the shop and archive for their Gesamtkunstwerk: The 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion, a kind of meta-museum. From 1987 through 1994, they focused their work on the subject of AIDS. Most recently, an exhaustive retrospective of General Idea travelled to the National Gallery of Canada, the Stedelijk Museum, and the Gropius Bau (Berlin).

Since his partners died in 1994, AA has worked and exhibited as a solo artist, often collaborating with younger generations, most provocatively in his performance series Invocation of the Queer Spirits. From 1999 to 2013 he worked as a healer, an identity that he incorporated into his artwork.

From 2004 to 2010 he was the Director of Printed Matter, Inc. in New York City, founding the annual NY Art Book Fair in 2005. In 2009 he founded the Institute for Art, Religion, and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In 2013 he was the founding Director of Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair. His various independent publishing projects, such as the Media Guru series, are also represented here.

AA Bronson’s work—as artist, healer, curator, and publisher—is dominated by the practice of collaboration and consensus. From his beginnings in a free school and commune, through his 25 years as one of the artists of General Idea, in his deep involvement with founding and developing collaborative and social structures such as Art Metropole, the NY Art Book Fair and AA Bronson’s School for Young Shamans, and through his current collaborations with younger generations, he has focused on the politics of decision-making and on living life radically as social sculpture.

AA Bronson holds many awards and three honorary doctorates. In 2008 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, and in 2011 he was named a Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres by the French government.

AA Bronson and General Idea are represented by Esther Schipper, Berlin. General Idea is also represented by Mai 36 Galerie, Zurich.

Gareth Long

Gareth Long is an artist whose diverse artistic practice unifies around a range of recurring motifs; repetition, seriality, amateurism, translation, collaboration, pedagogy, knowledge transmission, and the retelling of narratives. These various themes are mobilised in his work towards a larger project that dismantles notions of authorship and articulates a deep suspicion of originality and a clear investment in the domain of things already said, already written.

Often, this has seen him working across the converging roles of artist, curator, archivist, editor, educator, and student, as he has sought to further complicate notions of artistic creation and production. These themes are both a central thematic concern and a method in the production of the work. Many projects have often adopted a discursive mode of practice, engaging others in truly interdisciplinary, collaborative and pedagogically-focused projects that include installations in the public realm, written texts, book-works, performances, and discussions on the topics of cultural production, artistic labour, amateurism, copying, and post-studio practice.

Long is currently the Program Director of the Visual Studies department at the University of Toronto where he is also an Assistant Professor. He has previously taught in numerous Universities in North America, the UK, and Europe.

Long’s solo exhibitions include Kunsthalle Wien, Austria; The Blaffer Museum, USA; the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge; Oakville Galleries, Oakville; Kate Werble Gallery, New York; Michael Benevento, Los Angeles; TORRI, Paris; SpazioA, Pistoia; Galerie Bernhard, Zürich; and Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto.

His work has been shown at galleries and institutions such as MoMA PS1, Long Island City; Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Denver; The Power Plant, Toronto; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal; Artists Space, New York; Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York; Flat Time House, London; Drawing Room, London; Spike Island, Bristol; Wiels, Brussels; Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg; Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe; and Kunstinstituut Melly (formerly Witte de With), Rotterdam.

He holds an honours BA in Visual Studies and Classical Civilizations (2003) from the University of Toronto, and a MFA in Sculpture (2007) from Yale University.

Exhibition runs from 29 Dec 2024 – 28 Feb 2025

Exhibition opening times
Wed – Fri: 12–5pm
Sat: 12–5pm
(Dec 7 & 14, Jan 18 & 25, Feb 15 & 22)