God is My Gigolo

1969

40min

The Canadian artists’ group General Idea’s first and only film work, God is my Gigolo (1969), was shot in black and white on 16mm film without sound and was never completed. The work can be seen as a link between the underground cinema of the 1960s and 70s and the video art of today. It was shot in the neighborhood around the old house in Toronto where the General Idea group lived together and organized its first exhibitions, and on Ward’s Island, a small island in Toronto’s harbor. A drawing by Jorge Zontal of the set related in formal terms to Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’herbe. The film's central narrative, outlined in a handwritten script by Zontal--the original was also featured in the exhibition along with film stills and a drawing of the set--involves a giant toy penis discarded by a vagrant and then circulated among various protagonists until it finally washes up on a beach on Toronto Island, where it is discovered by a group of natives.