^{P Is For Poodle}

General Idea was a trio of artists who lived and worked together for more than 25 years until two of them died of AIDS, about four months apart, in 1994.

Their remaining member, AA Bronson, is giving a talk at the Henry tomorrow at 7 pm that you shouldn’t miss. I just got back from a press preview with him this morning, for the exhibition that opens Saturday at the Henry called General Idea Editions 1967-1995.

It’s a small show, but packed with the famous (the AIDS adaptation of Robert Indiana’s “LOVE” sculpture) and the obscure (the Miss General Idea pageant, the sharp-fingered couture-hand, the pills, the placebos, and the 1980s poodles meant as a taunt to all the writers who refused to address the themes of sexual identity in the work).

There are portraits of the artists as poodles (above), as doctors, and as white baby harp seals. (“We were always picturing ourselves as something other than artists,” Bronson said this morning.) The work captures the consumerist, appropriation-minded attitude of the late 20th-century, slyly, kindly, and playfully, to the end.

UPDATE: I’ve corrected the day of the lecture, which is tomorrow (Friday, June 1), not Saturday. Apologies.