Felix Gonzalez-Torres
American, born Cuba, 1957-1996

"Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991

Multicolored candies, individually wrapped in cellophane
Ideal weight 175 lb; installed dimensions variable, approximately 92 x 92 x 92 cm (36 x 36 x 36 in.)
Collection Donna and Howard Stone, on extended loan to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1.1999

© The Felix Gonzales-Torres Foundation.

Felix González-Torres used ordinary materials to extraordinary ends. From 1986 until his early death in 1996, he produced work of uncompromising beauty and simplicity, transforming the everyday into profound meditations on love and loss. González-Torres’s quiet, elegiac oeuvre comprises serial work including lightbulb strings, candy spills, beaded curtains, language-based works, graph-paper drawings, and stacked paper sculptures. This installation is an allegorical portrait of the artist’s partner, Ross Laycock, who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1991. The 175 pounds of candy corresponds to Ross's ideal body weight. While on display in our contemporary galleries, viewers are encouraged to help themselves. As the pile diminishes, candies are replaced.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Los Angeles, Luhring Augustine Hetzler Gallery, "Felix Gonzalez-Torres," October 19–November 16, 1991.

Pully/Lausanne, Switzerland, Musee D’Art Contemporian, "Post HUMAN," June 14–September 13, 1992; traveled to Rivoli, Italy, Castello di Rivoli, June 14–September 13, 1992; Athens, Greece, Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art, December 3–February 14, 1993; Hamburg, Germany, Deichtorhallen, March 12–May 9, 1993; traveled to Jerusalem, Israel Museum, June 21–October 10, 1993 (cat. not yet found).

Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, "Works on loan from the Collection of Vivian and David Campbell," January 21–August 6, 1993.

Hovikodden, Norway, Sonja Henie-Niels Onstad Art Center, "Thema Aids," May 8–July 8, 1993, curated by Kim Levin; traveled to Bergen, Norway Museum; Hagen, Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum, November 30, 1993–January 9, 1994 (cat. not yet found).

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, "Present Tense: Nine Artists in the Nineties," September 13, 1997–January 13, 1998, organized by Janet Bishop, Gary Garrels, and John S. Weber, cat. 9 (color ill.).

Barcelona, Spain, Museu d’Art Contemporani, "Artificial. Contemporary Figures," January 20–March 15, 1998, p. 49 (ill.).

Quebec, Canada, Musee d’Art Contemporain de Montreal, "Culbutes Oevre d’impertienence" ("Head over Heels into the Millenium"), November 18–April 23, 2000, curated by Paulette Gagnon and Sandra Grant Marchand, p. 36–37 (ill.).

New York, Luhring Augustine Gallery, "Untitled (Sculpture)," January 8–February12, 2000.

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, "The American Century: Art and Culture 1900–2000," September 26, 1999–February 13, 2000, p. 355 (ill.).

Philadelphia, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, "s(how)," May 3–July 27, 2003.

Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, "Universal Experience: Art, Life and the Tourist’s Eye," February 12–June 5, 2005, curated by Francesco Bonami; traveled to London, Hayward Gallery, October 6–December 11, 2005; Italy, Museo de Arte Moderna e Conteporanea de Trento e Rovereto (MART), February 10–May 14, 2006, p. 189 (color ill.).

Bern, Switzerland, Kunstmuseum Bern, "Six Feet Under: Autopsy of Our Relation to the Dead," cat. by Bernhard Fibicher, November 2, 2006–January 21, 2007, pp. 188, 194 (color ill.), 212, 216 as Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.).

New York, Apexart, "Let Everything be Temporary, or When is the Exhibition?," January 10–February 17, 2007, curated by Elena Filipovic, n.pag. (color ill).

Publication History

David Pagel, “World of Gonzalez-Torres. Testers on Joy and Despair,” Los Angeles Times (Nov. 7, 1991), section F, p. 6 (ill.).

R. J. Merrill, “Rituals and Allegories. Felix Gonzalez-Torres at Luhring Augustine Hetzler,” Artweek (Nov. 14, 1991), p. 14 (ill.).

Nicola White, Simon Watney and Vito Russo, Read My Lips: New York AIDS Polemics, exh. cat. (Glasgow: Tramway, 1992): 49 (ill.).

Nancy Spector, “Felix Gonzalez-Torres,” in Felix Gonzalez-Torres, exh. cat. (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1995), pp. 150–51, 222–23 (ill.).

“Felix Gonzalez-Torres (Album),” in Blocnotes, Sept./Oct. 1996, p. 87 (ill.).

Gerhard Mack, “Am Fusse des Kulturpalastes," in St. Galler Tagblatt (October 30, 1996), n.pag. (ill.).

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Catalogue Raisonné, exh. cat. by Dietmar Elger (New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 1997), cat. 168 (color ill.).

Lisa Stein, “What a concept: Museums try to preserve art when it goes beyond objects,” Chicago Tribune (October 22, 2000), section 7, p. 14 (ill.).

Elena Carotti, Terry Piazzoli, and Joy Ledgister-Holness, eds., Il Dono: The Gift (Milan: Edizioni Charta, 2001), p. 195 (ill.).

Nancy Spector, Cream 3: 10 Curators, 100 Contemporary Artists, 10 Source Artists, (London: Phaidon, 2003), p. 426 (ill.).

Jean Sousa, A Guide to Looking at Art: Faces, Places and Inner Spaces, (New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2006), pp. 32, 46 (ill.).

“Gallery One: Felix Gonzales-Torres,” Queer Cultural Center On-Line Programs,
http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/FelixGT/FelixGallery.html.


General Reference:

Suzanne Perling Hudson, “Beauty and the Status of Contemporary Criticism,” October 104 (Spring 2003), pp. 124–26.

Ownership History

Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York. Luhring Augustine Hetzler, Los Angeles. Collection Vivian and David Campbell, Warren, VT. Luhring Augustine, New York. Howard and Donna Stone Collection, Chicago, by 1997.