Felix GonzalezTorres

1Felix Gonzalez-TorresBorn 1957, Gaimaro, CubaLived and worked in New YorkDied 1996, Miami, FloridaThe art of the late Felix Gonzalez- Torres took many different forms during his relatively brief career but it was always motivated by his fervent desire for dialogue and community. His self-portrait in the form of a personal chronology is painted in two bands above eye level on the gallerys four walls. According to the artists wishes, new events or significant moments related to his life may be added to the work each time it is installed. To enter this space, viewers must walk through Untitled (Water), a beaded curtain that refers to the artists deep connection to the sea, stemming from his childhood in Cuba and his life in Miami. He invited viewers to take part in the metaphorical and literal evolution of his works meaning, and our participation grants it a kind of perpetually renewed life and relevance. Felix Gonzalez-Torress first solo exhibition was presented in New York in 1984, and during the last decade his work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including El Jardin Salvaje, Fundacin Caja de Pensiones, Madrid, The Body, Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, and Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1991); 45th Venice Biennale (1993); About Place: Recent Art of the Americas, The Art Institute of Chicago, and Public Information: Desire, Disaster, Document, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California (1995); and NowHere, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebk, and Jurassic Technologies Revenant, the 10th Biennale of Sydney (1996). His work has also been presented in solo exhibitions at New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1988); Brooklyn Museum, New York (1989); Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York (annually 1990-93, and 1995, 1997); Museum of Modern Art, New York (1992); Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin, and Museum in Progress, Vienna (1993); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, traveling to Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Felix Gonzalez-Torres, untitled (Water), 1995, plastic beads and metal rod, installation dimensions variable (installation view)Felix Gonzalez-Torres, untitled, 1995, paint on wall, dimensions vary with installation (installation view)2and Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (1994); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1995); Muse dArt Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1996); and Sprengel Museum Hannover, with venues at St. Gallen Kunstmuseum, Switzerland, and Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna (1997-98). Felix Gonzalez-Torres, 24 Billboards, NYC. December 4-31, 2000Creative Time, as part of its mission to present and stimulate dialogue around art in the public sphere, presents 24 locations of Felix Gonzalez-Torres billboard Untitled 1995 in conjunction with an exhibition of his work at Andrea Rosen Gallery from December 2, 2000 - January 13, 2001. Along with the presentation of a Gonzalez-Torres billboard never shown before in the United States, Creative Time has developed this site to foster understanding about the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres. With the recommendations of the Estate of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, we have reprinted several of the most insightful documents about Gonzalez-Torres work, as well as his bio and a brief essay by Andrea Rosen, executrix of Gonzalez-Torres estate.Education 1983 Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, B.F.A. 1981, 1983 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Independent Study Program 1987 International Center for Photography, New York University, M.F.A. Selected Further Reading Sprengel Museum Hannover, Germany; St. Gallen Kunstmuseum, Switzerland; and Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna. Felix Gonzalez-Torres (199798). Exhibition catalogue, texts by Roland Wspe, Andrea Rosen, Dietmar Elger, Rainer Fuchs, and David Deitcher. Catalogue raisonn by Dietmar Elger.The Art Institute of Chicago. About Place: Recent Art of the Americas (1995). Exhibition catalogue, texts by Madeleine Grynsztejn and Dave Hickey. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1995). Exhibition catalogue, text by Nancy Spector. Bartman, William S., ed. Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Los Angeles: A.R.T. Press, 1993. Essay by Susan Cahan, short story by Jan Avgikos, and interview with the artist by Tim Rollins. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California. Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1994). Exhibition catalogue, texts by Amada Cruz, Russell Ferguson, Ann Goldstein, bell hooks, Joseph Kosuth, and Charles Merewether.3FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES ETRE UN ESPIONInterview byRobert StorrThe work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres has quickly risen to a preeminent place on the international scene as one of the most personal oeuvres in contemporary art. The great number of shows currently devoted to his output, including the major exhibition planned for the Guggenheim (17 February - 7 March, 1995) are ample proof of this attention. Criticized as being a politically correct artist, Gonzalez-Torres strikes back in the following interview, calling for a veritable guerrilla war intelligent and undercover against the plethora of straightforward, moralizing works of art with their angry-young-man messages. Robert Storr: You recently took part in an exhibition in London that placed you in context with Joseph Kosuth, and the pair of you in context with Ad Reinhardt. And I was struck by the fact that instead of trying to separate yourself from previous generations, you joined with Kosuth in establishing an unexpected aesthetic lineage. Could you talk about that a little bit because on the whole, younger artists generally avoid putting themselves in such close proximity to their predecessors, especially conceptualists in relation to painters?Felix Gonzalez-Torres: I dont really see it that way. I think more than anything else Im just an extension of certain practices, minimalism or conceptualism, that I am developing areas I think were not totally dealt with. I dont like this idea of having to undermine your ancestors, of ridiculing them, undermining them, and making less out of them. I think were part of a historical process and I think that this attitude that you have to murder your father in order to start something new is bullshit. We are part of this culture, we dont come from outer space, so whatever I do is already something that has entered my brain from some other sources and is then synthesized into something new. I respect my elders and I learn from them. Theres nothing wrong with accepting that. Im secure enough to accept those influences. I dont have anxiety about originality, I really dont.READING ALTHUSSER DRUNKHow did that show come about? Joseph and I met one day somewhere downtown, and he was talking about how much he admired Reinhardt, although he was a totally different kind of artist - a painter - belonging to a different generation. It was the same thing for me with Joseph. I will never do the kind of work that Joseph has done. Im not into Heidegger and I dont go to the dictionary and blow up the information into black-and-white photostats. But I respect Josephs work a lot. I think that we in the new generation, the one that has used some of the same ideas for the advancement of social issues, owe a lot to artists of the past like Lawrence Weiner and Kosuth. In the essay in the shows catalogue Joseph said it very well, “The failure of conceptual art is actually its success.” Because we, in the next generation, took those strategies and didnt worry if it looked like art or not, that was their business. We just took it and said 4that it didnt look like art, theres no question about it but this is what were doing. So I do believe in looking back and going through school reading books. You learn from these people. Then, hopefully, you try to make it, not better (because you cant make it better), but you make it in a way that makes sense. Like the Don Quixote of Pierre Menard by Borges; its exactly the same thing but its better because its right now. It was written with a history of now, although its the same, word by word.RS: What other theoretical models do you have in mind?FG: Althusser, because what I think he started pointing out were the contradictions within our critique of capitalism. For people who have been reading too much hard-core Marxist theory, it is hard to deal with the fact that theyre not saints. And I say no, theyre not. Everything is full of contradictions; there are only different degrees of contradiction. We try to get close them, but thats it, they are always going to be there. The only thing to do is to give up and pull the plug, but we cant. Thats the great thing about Althusser, when you read his philosophy. Something that I tell my students is to read once, then if you have problems with it read it a second time. Then if you still have problems, get drunk and read it a third time with a glass of wine next to you and you might get something out of it, but always think about practice. The theory in the books is to make you live better Felix Gonzalez-TorresUntitled (Veterans Day Sale), 1989. Offset print on paper. The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation. Courtesy of Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York. Felix Gonzalez-TorresCuban-born artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres was able to imbue simple images and objects with a tremendous depth of meaning and emotion. He belonged to a generation of contemporary American artists who reinterpreted Minimal and Conceptual Art of the1960s and 1970s as a psychological, personal endeavor.His best-known works are the “stack” piecesneat piles of unlimited-edition prints that viewers are encouraged to take but are then intermittently replaced, resulting in a constantly changing height of the sculpture. Untitled (Veterans Day Sale) is one of Gonzalez-Torress first stack pieces. By focusing solely on the commercialism that has become associated with the Veterans Day holiday, it expresses how leisure and consumption have replaced earnest celebrations of historical events. His stacks acquired special poignancy when the artist began to link them with the AIDS epidemic: the slowly dwindling piles were a metaphor for the atrophy of AIDS victims bodies. The artist himself died of AIDS in 1996.5and thats what, I think, all theory should do. Its about trying to show you certain ways of constructing reality. Im not even saying finding (Im using my words very carefully), but there are certain ways of constructing reality that helps you live better, theres no doubt about it. When I teach, thats what I show my students to read all this stuff without a critical attitude. Theory is not the endpoint of work; it is work along the way to the work. To read it actively is just a process that will hopefully bring us to a less shadowed place.FOR WHICH AUDIENCERS: When you say what you and some of the people of your generation have done is to deal with the elements of conceptualism that can be used for a political or a social end, how do you define the political or social dimension of art? What do you think the parameters are?FG: Im glad that this question came up. I realize again how successful ideology is and how easy it was for me to fall into that trap, calling this socio-political art. All art and all cultural production is political.Ill just give you an example. When you raise the question of political or art, people immediately jump and say, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Leon Golub, Nancy Spero, those are political artists. Then who are the non-political artists, as if that was possible at this point in history? Lets look at abstraction, and lets consider the most successful of those political artists, Helen Frankenthaler. Why are they the most successful political artists, even more than Kosuth, much more than Hans Haacke, much more than Nancy and Leon or Barbara Kruger? Because they dont look political! And as we know its all about looking natural, its all about being the normative aspect of whatever segment of culture were dealing with, of life. Thats where someone like Frankenthaler is the most politically successful artist when it comes to the political agenda that those works entail, because she serves a very clear agenda of the Right.For example, here is something the State Department sent to me in 1989, asking me to submit work to the Art and Embassy Program. It has this wonderful quote from George Bernard Shaw, which says, “Besides torture, art is the most persuasive weapon.” And I said I didnt know that the State Department had given up on torture theyre probably not giving up on torture but theyre using both. Anyway, look at this letter, because in case you missed the point they reproduce a Franz Kline which explains very well what they want in this program. Its a very interesting letter, because its so transparent. Another example: when you have a show with white male straight painters, you dont call it that, that would be absurd, right? Thats just not “natural.” But if you have four Black lesbian sculptors from Brooklyn, thats exactly what you call it, “Four African-American Lesbians from Brooklyn.”RS: Whats your agenda? Who are you trying to reach?FG: When people ask me, “Who is your public?” I say honestly, without skipping a beat, “Ross.” The public was Ross. The rest of the people just come to the work. In my recent show at the Hirshhorn, which is one of the best experiences I have had in a long time, the guards were really in it. Because I 6talked to them, I dealt with them. Theyre going to be here eight hours with this stuff. And I never see guards as guards, I see guards as the public. Since the other answer to the question “Whos the public?” is, well, the people who are around you, which includes the guards. In Washington people asked me, “Did I train the guards, did I give them a lecture?” I said, “No, I just talk to them when Im doing the work.” They said, “You know we have never been to an exhibit where the guards go up to the viewers and tell them what to do, and where to go, what to look at, what it means.” But again, that division of labor, that division of function is always there in place to serve someones agenda.THE POLITICAL ARENAWhen I was at Hirshhorn and saw the show, there was one particular guard who was standing with the big candy floor piece Untitled (Placebo), and she was amazing. There was this suburban white, middle class mother, with two young sons who came in the room and in thirty seconds, this woman who was a black, maybe church-going civil servant in Washington, in the middle of all this reactionary pressure about the arts there she was explaining to this mother and kids about AIDS and what this piece represented, what a placebo was, and how there was no cure and so on. Then the boys started to fill their pockets with candies and she sort of looked at them like a school mistress and said, “Youre only supposed to take one.” Just as their faces fell and they tossed back all but a few she suddenly smiled again ad said, “Well maybe two.” And she won them over completely! The whole thing worked because then they got the piece, they got the interaction, they got the generosity and they got her. It was great. Untitled (Placebo). 1991. Silver-cellophane-wrapped candies, endlessly replenished supply, ideal weight 1,000 lbs., dimensions variable7RS: Do you think theres a way to break the intellectual habits that result from generations of moralizing protest art? FG: Such work is based on the idea that the artist is there to enlighten a socially benighted world, along with that comes the expectation that the artist personally be a beacon of virtue so that if, at any point, they are shown to be less than pure, then everything they say is subsequently dismissed as bogus. This has happened over and over, as if the social content of art were limited to individual ethical exercises rather than thinking of art as political and cultural probe.Lets go to the political arena, Ill say, the real political arena, and say that some politicians that have not been “good,” yet they have done some very wonderful things for everyone, improving the quality of life for a lot of us in a very tangible way and at the most intimate personal levels. Like some of the programs John F. Kennedy started. Im a product of that. I went to school because of what that man started. Womanizers and drunks and all that stuff, guys with mob connections made all these changes possible so that someone like me could the get loans and go to school. Thats just one simple example of from life. Lets move forward to a certain degree, in terms of the kind of protest art that says all Capital is bad, Bennetton is bad. We know that! We really do know that. We dont need a gallery space to find out something we read in the news.PURITAN ANTI-AESTHETICRS: What about ideas of a puritan anti-aesthetic?FG: I dont want that. No, between the Monet and Victor Burgin, give me the Monet. But as we know aesthetics are politics. Theyre not even about politics, they are politics. Because when you ask who is defining aesthetics, at what particular point what social class, what kind of background these people have you realize quickly again that the most effective ideological construction are the ones that dont look like it. If you say, Im political, Im ideological, that is not going to work, because people know where you are coming from. But if you say, “Hi! My name is Bob and this is it,” then they say, thats not political. Its invisible and it really works. I think certain elements of beauty used to attract the viewer are indispensable. I dont want to make art just for people who can read Fredrick Jameson sitting upright on a Mackintosh chair. I want to make art for people who watch the Golden Girls and sit in a big, brown, Lazy-boy chair. Theyre part of my public too, I hope. In the same way that that woman and the guard are part of my public.RS: How do you think about the issue of engaging in explicitly social forms of art making with respect to your involvement with an activist collaborative project like Group Material? Whats the relation between the work you did with them and what you do as an individual artist?FG: I always worked as an individual artist even when Group Material asked me to join the group. There are certain things that I can do by myself that I would never be able to do with Group Material. First of all, they are totally democratic entity and although you learn a lot from it, and its very moving, its very exacting, everything has to be by consensus, which is the beauty of it, but it is 8much more work. Its worth it 100%. But as an individual artist there are certain things that I want to bring out and express, and the collaborative practice is not conducive to that.RS: Group Materials installations were generally a form of public address. How does that differ from what youve done on your own in other circumstances?FG: Well, if you think of the stacks, especially the early stacks, that was all about making these huge, public sculptures. When I started doing this work in 1988-89 the buzzword was public art. One thing that amazed me at that the difference between being public and being outdoors was not spoken about. Its a big difference. Public art is something which is really public, but outdoor public art is something that is usually made of good, long lasting material and is placed in the middle of somewhere, because its too big to be inside. I was trying to deal with a solution that would satisfy what I thought was a true public sculpture, and that is when I came up with the idea of a stack. It was before people started making scatter art and stuff like that. So when people walked into the gallery at Andrea Rosens and they saw all these stacks, they were really confused because it looked like a printing house, and I enjoyed it very much. And thats why I made the early stacks with the text. I was trying to give back information. For example, there are ones I made