Back in the 1980s, a prominent group of Canadian artists got together and called themselves General Idea.

Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal & A A Bronson, circa 1975.

The infamous trio, who went by the pseudonyms A.A. Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal, went on to worldwide acclaim and their work is featured in galleries around the world. Unfortunately we lost Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal to AIDS, and AA Bronson is doing solo shows; however Bronson is helping to bring Zontal’s final works to the Susan Hobbs Gallery in an exhibition entitled Black Floaters. What follows is AA’s moving description describing the events that led up to Zontal’s last series:

"These particular drawings were the last drawings he drew, and he made them during the time he was going blind. He went blind over a period of about four weeks in the period leading up to Christmas, 1993," Bronson told the Toronto Star. "His eyesight collapsed rapidly, and the black floaters that he had begun to complain of filled more and more of his vision, until they completely blocked it. It was during this period that he asked for the oversized Moore paint sample book, a momento of the early postwar years which we had been carting around since our early years together. We had always felt it was raw material for a project or a piece, but we never knew what. Now Jorge began to transform the bland middle-class interiors depicted there with a thick covering of quickly drawn cockroaches. He was desperate to finish the drawings before he went completely blind and that desperation is evident in the drawings."

Hobbs is showing nine works where Zontal’s enormous black roaches invade domestic space, smashing any dreams of domestic perfection into oblivion. Black Floaters will be showing at the Susan Hobbs Gallery until March 3rd at 137 Tecumseth St. 416-504-3699.