About This Artwork

In 1989 Felix Gonzalez-Torres made his first stack sculptures, which are comprised of sheets of paper piled neatly into a cubic form on the gallery floor. As both an homage to and a critique of Minimalist art, the artist appropriated the term stack from Donald Judd. In opposition to what Gonzalez-Torres perceived as Minimalism’s static, monolithic forms, Silver Beach encourages people to touch, dismantle, and even use the work. The artist thus advanced a kind of subversive generosity, tinged, as always, with sadness. As sheets are taken, the form disappears; they are replenished, and the piece thereby endures despite its continual dematerialization. The parenthetical title of this stack obliquely references Miami, the city that was the artist’s first and last home in the United States. Silver suggests Miami’s penchant for Art Deco and, perhaps, the reflection of moonlight on the ocean.