Félix González-Torres or Felix Gonzalez-Torres (November 26, 1957 – January 9, 1996) was a Cuban-born American visual artist. He lived and worked primarily in New York City between 1979 and 1995 after attending university in Puerto Rico. González-Torres’s practice incorporates a minimalist visual vocabulary and certain artworks that are composed of everyday materials such as strings of light bulbs, paired wall clocks, stacks of paper, and individually wrapped candies. He was gay and frequently explored themes around his sexuality and stigma in his work. González-Torres is known for having made significant contributions to the field of conceptual art in the 1980s and 1990s. His practice continues to influence and be influenced by present-day cultural discourses. González-Torres died in Miami in 1996 from AIDS-related illness.
Career González-Torres was trained as a photographer and his work incorporates this medium in varying ways. He is well known for works that transform commonplace materials into installations that foster meaningful responses from audiences, as well as works with which audiences can choose to physically interact, and works that may be manifested anew and can change each time they are exhibited. González-Torres stated “the only thing permanent is change,” always questioning the stability of the art object.
Throughout much of González-Torres's practices, he purposefully incorporated dissonant information and formats. Examples of these contradictions include the way he structured courses as a professor, wrote press releases and texts, gave lectures, participated in interviews, and created varying strategies for each body of work. One particular example is the way Gonzalez-Torres structured a lecture on the occasion of a solo-exhibition of his work at The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago in 1994. Following a slide show of various artworks and exhibitions in which his work was included, Gonzalez-Torres proceeded to read a prepared statement reflecting on the current national deficit, government budget allocations for public housing versus military spending, incarceration and poverty rates, and inequitable wealth distribution. He closed the lecture with a quote from a New York Times article that establishes a legacy of contention around the separation of church and state. This methodology was intended to foster individuals’ right and responsibility to have their own point of view.
Over time the work has been interpreted through varying critical lenses, including: the subjective construction of histories, questions of monumentality and attachment to permanency; the profoundness of love and partnership, codes and resilience of queer love; the role of ownership; perceptions of value and authority; discourse around death, loss, and the potentiality of renewal; questions of display and conditions of reception, notions of disidentification; the role and subversiveness of beauty;hooks, bell. "subversive beauty: new modes of contestation." Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Edited by Russell Ferguson. Los Angeles, CA: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1994: 45 – 49. the rewards and consequences of generosity;Ricco, John Paul. "Unbecoming Community." The Decision Between Us. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 2014: 173 – 207. arbitrary delineations between private and public selves/places; social, political, and personal dimensions of the AIDS epidemic; questions of established economic and political structures;Gonzalez-Torres, Felix. "Practices: The Problem of Divisions of Cultural Labor." ACME Journal 1.2 (1992): 44 – 49. Reproduced by permission of Joshua Decter and Andrea Rosen. occupation of the margins and infiltration of centers of power; the instability of language and what is connoted vs. denoted; somatic responses/forms of knowledge; etc. At the core of so many of the artist’s works is the physical experience of the works and their capacity to be manifest in perpetually changing circumstances.
Gonzalez-Torres stated that his work requires an audience, following Bertolt Brecht’s theory of Epic Theatre. This is a theory that means an audience member is primed to have an individualized response to a performance that leads them to effect change in the world. Gonzalez-Torres maintained that his work should always remain open to new and changing interpretations. While Gonzalez-Torres’s work is conceptual, the formal qualities of the work are especially powerful in their ability to elicit individualized emotional responses from each viewer. “My work is about the daily dealing with events, and objects that form, transform, and affect my positioning.”The Workspace: Felix Gonzalez-Torres. The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY. 16 Sep. – 20 Nov. 1988. Cur. Laura Trippi.
Categories and bodies of work Categories and bodies of Gonzalez-Torres’ work most often reflected the way that he commonly referred to works in his lifetime. Certain works may fit into more than one category/body of work. Some bodies of work by González-Torres's are accompanied by Certificates of Authenticity and Ownership. The certificate includes information about the parameters for installing or exhibiting the work, the conceptual nature of the work, as well as the owner's integral role in the artwork.
Billboards The billboard works date from 1989 to 1995. The billboard works consist of specific images or texts that are installed at billboard scale. It is essential to 14 of the 17 billboard works that they must be installed in multiple, diverse, public/outdoor sets of locations (ideally 24 locations at a time).Felix Gonzalez-Torres “Untitled”, 1995. Annin Arts, Accra, Ghana. 28 Sep. – 2 Nov. 2018. Archival video documentation. Documentation of each billboard location is an essential aspect of these works. Birds in sky The ‘birds in sky’ works date from 1989 to 1995. Images of birds in the sky are featured across many bodies of work in Gonzalez-Torres’s practice, including billboards, doubles, framed photographs, paper stack, pedestals/platforms, and puzzles.
Candy works
The ‘candy works’ date from 1990 to 1993. The dimensions for the majority of the candy works include an “ideal weight.” In total there are twenty candy works. Fifteen of the candy works have ideal ‘weights’: four of these ‘ideal weights’ may correlate to an average body weight of an adult male, and three may correlate to a combined average body weight of two adult men. The medium for each candy work includes “endless supply” as well as “dimensions vary with installation.” When candies are present in a manifestation of a candy work, it is integral that viewers must be permitted to choose to take individual pieces of candy from the work. The candies may or may not be replenished at any time.Measure Your Existence. Rubin Museum of Art, New York, NY. 7 Feb. 2020 – 4 Jan. 2021. Cur. Christine Starkman. Candy works can exist in more than one place at a time and can vary from installation to installation based on the owner’s or authorized borrower’s interpretations. Each of the candy works are unique.
Curtains The ‘curtain’ works date from 1989 to 1995. The fabric curtain work is intended to be installed on existing windows as standard curtains would typically appear.Felix Gonzalez-Torres – Roni Horn. Bourse De Commerce – Pinault Collection & Editions Dilecta. 2022. There are five beaded curtain works, each with a specific bead pattern, and one fabric curtain work.Passages: Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA. 17 Sep. 2011 – Jan. 2015. Cur. Jen Mergel. Beaded curtain works must be installed in locations where individuals would naturally have the choice to pass through them and the work’s dimensions vary with installation.Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Massimo De Carlo, Milan, Italy. 20 May – 20 Jul. 2016. Cur. Julie Ault and Roni Horn. [One of three parts. Additional parts: Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, NY. 3 May – 18 Jun. 2016; Hauser & Wirth, London, England, United Kingdom. 27 May – 30 Jul. 2016.] Curtain works can exist in more than one place at a time.Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Rudolf Stingel. Graz, Austria: Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, 1994. [Essays by Jan Avgikos, Francesco Bonami, and Peter Weibel].
Doubles
The ‘doubles’ works date from 1989 to 1995. Doubled objects, images, and motifs feature across the majority of the bodies of work in Gonzalez-Torres’s practice, most notably his "Untitled" (Perfect Lovers) work.
Framed photographs The framed photographic works date from 1986 to 1995. The artist considered the frame to be an essential element of these works. This is one of many bodies of Gonzalez-Torres’s works that incorporate photographic methodologies. Many of the artist’s framed photographs were purposefully analog, developed and processed by hand, as opposed to other photographic works by Gonzalez-Torres which emphasized mechanical reproducibility and the overt removal of the artist’s hand.
Graphs The ‘graph’ works date from 1988 to 1994. With the exception of one photograph, the ‘graph’ works are the only works that have hand drawn elements. The ‘graph’ works consist of both painting and drawings. While some of these works have been contextualized as representations of individuals’ medical charts, the graph works are intentionally non-specific and are also referential to other graphed data.
Image transfers The ‘image transfers’ date from 1987 to 1992. All three of these works are made in editions. Two of these works are intended to be permanently installed directly on the wall and the third is intended to be permanently tattooed.
Light strings The ‘light string’ works date from 1992 to 1994. The light strings were produced by an electrician in conversation with the artist and consist of commonplace electrical components. Each light string work can only exist in one place at a time; which is in contrast to Gonzalez-Torres’s manifestable works that are also made of commonplace materials. The dimensions of a light string work vary with each installation; the exhibitor’s choice of configuration for each installation completes the work. There are 24 individual light string works; 22 are unique and two are editioned works. The light strings works are intended to be displayed either with all the bulbs on or all the bulbs off; light bulbs are replaced promptly as necessary. The relative brightness of the lightbulbs for each light string work is specified but the actual brightness may vary from one installation to the next.
Mirrors There are four individual mirror works dating from 1992 to 1994. Three of these works consist of mirrors of a specific size that are either hung on or embedded in the wall. One of the mirror works consists of a mirrored box that is displayed on the ground.
Multiples The category of multiples represents those works made in edition sizes ranging from six to unlimited. There are 18 individual multiples in various mediums, dating from 1987 to 1995. Many of the works in this category purposefully resemble unique works, questioning notions of value and the power of the language of categorization.
Newspaper and magazine clippings Imagery sourced from ‘newspaper and magazine clippings’ features across many bodies of work in Gonzalez-Torres’s practice including paper stacks, puzzles, framed works and paintings. These works include images and texts that pertain to politics, violence, consumerism, mass culture, and religion. Images of crowds are especially prominent in this category of works, and this motif carries its own diverse scope of meanings in the artist’s work.
Paintings