FILE Megazine | The first six issues
General Idea [AA Bronson, Felix Partz, and Jorge Zontal]. FILE Megazine. Volumes 1 & 2 (complete). 1972–73.
10 ½ x 14”; complete with all inserts; issue 1:1 lacks a corner of the back cover; 1:2 & 3 cover separating but attached; all fragile.
First edition, one of 3,000 copies, the full edition.
Among artists’ magazines and periodicals, FILE Megazine occupies a very unique position: between 1972 and 1989, the celebrated Canadian artists’ collaborative General Idea [active 1969–1994] published 26 issues of this sophisticated, though self-published, magazine, which had a distribution extending far beyond its Toronto underground origins. Its name and logo adapted those of the famous LIFE, whose heyday was in the 1950s and early 1960s, demonstrating a very Pop strategy of appropriation. As it was retrospectively put by AA Bronson, one of the members of the collective, the magazine’s purpose has been the search of “an alternative to the Alternative Press,” a subversive concept of infiltration within mainstream media and culture. Thus the early issues’ manifestos, lists of addresses, and letters from friends, were rapidly replaced by General Idea’s scripts and projects as well as cultural issues (as in the famous “Glamour” or “Punk” issues), while never losing a cutting-edge attention to emerging practices on the art scene and experimental layouts. The magazine was founded with a grant from the Canadian federal government: this grant allowed for the creation and publication of the first three issues. After that, the magazine was funded by support from its subscribers, advertisers and the Canada Council for the Arts.
The visual design and identity of FILE was a deliberate appropriation of the defunct LIFE. FILE’s initial logo featured white block letters on a red rectangle like the LIFE logo, with the letters rearranged. This corresponded with General Idea’s desire that the magazine be a “parasite within the world of magazine distribution.” Initially the magazine served a dual purpose. It was a record and site of activity for the mail/correspondence-art movement. Material for the magazine was sourced from submissions by a network of mail-art correspondents (fostered by General Idea’s national and international connections), and can thus be said that it was the first mail-art project in magazine format. Each issue featured a directory of the members of this network, including their pseudonyms and addresses. Via this list, members could publish requests for found images.
The magazine was also the mouthpiece of General Idea, and in this sense, was used as a way for the group to release a kind of propagandistic, self-referential self-promotion. Editorials for each issue were written by the group and were elaborations of the group's core conceptual principles, furthering their own mythology: the editorial of the Glamour Issue [1975], for instance, is widely thought to be a kind of manifesto on General Idea’s operating principles. The writing style of these editorials is noteworthy for its heavily ironic use of language, a parody of advertising copy, laced with double-entendres. As the mail-art movement subsided, the focus of FILE broadened to include the wider arts, culture and entertainment worlds. Notable cover models in this period include Debbie Harry and Tina Turner.
In 1976, the Time/Life Corporation sued General Idea for copyright infringement (the corporation held the copyright for white-block lettering on a red parallelogram), and demanded that the group cease publication of the magazine. General Idea received a great deal of publicity and sympathetic support. An article appeared in The Village Voice, which included a stern condemnation of the lawsuit by Robert Hughes, Time's then art editor. The lawsuit was eventually settled in 1977, with General Idea changing the logo and format of the magazine. The magazine continued to publish until 1989.