Jorge Zontal

Who was Jorge Zontal?

Slobodan Saia-Levy, publicly known as Jorge Zontal, was a Canadian artist and cofounder of the artistic collective General Idea with Felix Partz and AA Bronson.

Zontal was born in Parma, Italy, in 1944, the son of Yugoslav refugees. He grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, and in 1968 he earned a degree in architecture at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he also studied film making and acting. Soon after graduation, he met AA Bronson and Felix Partz while working on a film in Toronto and their group, General Idea, soon became an active part of the Canadian and then the international art scene.

Zontal died on February 3, 1994 of AIDS-related causes.