General Idea
Liquid Assets
1980
Plexiglas, glass test tube, in a printed clamshell box with label and die-cut foam inserts
13 x 7 x 5 inches / 33 x 18 x 13 cm (object)
14.5 x 14.5 x 4 inches / 37 x 37 x 10 cm (case)
Signed and numbered edition of 50, plus 5 APs
When the celebrated Canadian artists’ collective, General Idea (1969–1994) set out to create their Liquid Assets edition back in 1980 they planned to produce a run of 50 copies. However, due to the cost of production, they produced only the first 10 pieces of the edition (all unsigned and unnumbered), most of which ended up going to friends and museums.
Bywater Bros. Editions, working in consultation with AA Bronson, is pleased to announce the release of the remaining 40 copies (plus proofs) of this legendary multiple, which has been updated with the addition of a custom-made case.
Conceived as a cocktail holder, Liquid Assets was one of the key components in General Idea’s Colour Bar Lounge (1979), The Getting into the Spirits Cocktail Book (1980), and The Boutique from the 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion (1980). A copy of the edition was also featured on the front cover of the “Special $ucce$$ Issue” of FILE Megazine (vol. 5, no. 1, March 1981). Of the many editions created by the collective, Liquid Assets stands out as one of the most iconic and recognizable works… a work that has been completely unavailable to collectors, until now.
General Idea was founded in Toronto in 1969 by Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and AA Bronson. The collective interrogated media culture through now legendary projects like FILE Megazine (26 issues, 1972-1989), as well as paintings, installations, sculptures, mail art, photographs, videos, ephemera, TV programs, and even beauty pageants. The group’s transgressive concepts and provocative imagery challenged social power structures and traditional modes of artistic creation in ever-shifting ways, until Partz and Zontal’s untimely deaths from AIDS-related causes in 1994.
$3000
