Draft:Fin De Siècle

Fin De Siècle (1990)

Fin de siècle (1990) is a unique installation by General Idea group consisting of three stuffed faux life-size harp seal pups and expanded polystyrene, which is not permanent element of the work, but it could be purchased, rented or borrowed for each installation and depending on the space for the exhibition. One day Felix Partz said "I know it sounds strange, but I had a dream of a large iceberg made of polystyrene and 3 white seal pups" : first shown at the exhibition "Fin de siècle" at the Koury Wingate Gallery, New York (march 3-24,1990), Fin de Siècle has travelled, over the ensuing years, in all the most important exhibitions on General Idea's work.

General Idea group created a related editions: Hope Chest (1992), General Idea's Putti (1993), and Fin de Siecle (1994), a print depicting seals and the arctic landscape.

The work Fin De Siècle is owned by the italian collector Graci Carmelo, in Graci Collection, a contemporary art collection located in Mantua (Italy).

Meaning of the work

Installation Instructions declare:

''Fin de Siècle is a parody of a diorama in a Natural History Museum. It also has the atmosphere of Romantic landscape paintings, in particular “The Wreck of The Hope” or “The Polar Sea” by Caspar David Friedrich. Fin de Siècle represents an emotion: you feel that these poor helpless seals are cast adrift in this blinding, feautureless environment. You feel that the seals are victims. Fin de Siècle is a spectacle, a Constructivist explosion of rectangles. Fin de Siècle is both cute and pathetic, cold and merciless.''

Fin de siècle also refers to the AIDS pandemic: the seals represent the artists, disoriented by the terrible impact of the epidemic on them and their friends; indeed In the interview given on the occasion of the exhibition at the Malba Museum in Buenos Aires (2017) AA Bronson declared "The image of the three seals is in a certain sense the image of the artist as a victim, of the artist as the endangered species. Yes, this work is in some way a self-portrait".

Exhibition of the work

No retrospective exhibition of General Idea's work could be considered complete without Fin De Siècle (1990), remaining one of the group's most iconic and moving statements, coming, as it does, following the diagnoses of Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal and just four years before their deaths. Below is the list of the main exhibitions in which the work was presented:

“General Idea, Fin de Siècle”, Koury Wingate Gallery, New York, 1990

“ "Fin de Siecle," a six-stop tour solo exhibition 1992-1993: Wurttembergischer Kunstverein, Stoccarda - Centre d’Art Santa Monica, Barcellona - Kunstverein in Hamburg, Amburgo - The Power Plant, Toronto - Wexner Center for Visual Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus, USA - San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco

“L’hiver de l’amour” Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville Paris, 1994

“Roteiros”, XXIV Bienal de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, 1998

“The Sensous Whiteness of Life’s Interruptions”, Camden Art Centre, London, 1998

“General Idea Ed. 1967-1995” tour exhibition 2003/7: Kunstverein Munchen, Kunst-Werke Berlin, Kunsthalle Zurich and CAAC Sevilla

“Collectors 2 – La Collezione Renato Alpegiani”, Il Filatoio, Caraglio (CN), 2008

“Haute Culture: General Idea”, Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville Paris, 2011

“General Idea. Tiempo Partido ", Malba, Buenos Aires, 2017

“General Idea. Broken Time", Jumex Museum, Mexico, 2017

“General Idea”, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada, 2022

“General Idea”, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Olanda, 2023

“General Idea”, Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany, 2023.