Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, Portraits, Plots and Places: The Permanent Collection Revisited, January 1992 (another example exhibited)
Philadelphia, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, February – March 1994 (another example exhibited)
New York, Exit Art/The First World,…it’s how you play the game, November 1994 – February 1995 (another example exhibited)
New York, Betsy Senior Gallery, A.R.T. Press: Prints and Multiples, January – February 1995 (another example exhibited)
Santiago de Compostela, Spain, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Felix Gonzalez-Torres (A Possible Landscape), December 1995 – March 1996 (another example exhibited)
New York, Feature, Inc., The Moderns, June – July 1995 (another example exhibited)
Cincinnati, The Contemporary Arts Center, Momento Mori, November 1996 – January 1997 (another example exhibited)
Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Felix Gonzalez-Torres (Girlfriend in a Coma), April – June 1996 (another example exhibited)
Houston, Texas, Lawing Gallery, Silence, September – October 1996 (another example exhibited)
London, 148 St. John Street, Blue Horizon, May – June 1998 (another example exhibited)
Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Proliferation, March – June 1999 (another example exhibited)
San Angel, Mexico, Museo de Arte Carillo Gil, Colección Jumex, April – August 1999, pp. 14, 16-17,  illustrated (another example exhibited)
Paris, Galerie Jennifer Flay, Always Paris, November – December 2000 (another example exhibited)
Ecatepec, Mexico, La Colección Jumex, Killing Time and Listening Between the Lines, March 2003 – February 2004 (another example exhibited)
Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, Shadowland: An Exhibition as Film, April – September 2005 (another example exhibited)
Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The Blake Byrne Collection, July – October 2005, p. 38, illustrated (another example exhibited)
Cascais, Portugal, Ellipse Foundation Art Centre, Listen, Darling…The World is Yours, October 2008 – August 2009 (another example exhibited)
Aspen Art Museum, Now You See It, December 2008 – February 2009, pp. 58-61, illustrated (another example exhibited)
Virginia Beach, The Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, Transformed, July – September 2008, pp. 4, 9, 20-21, illustrated (another example exhibited)
Ecatepec, Mexico, La Colección Jumex, An Unruly History of the Readymade, September 2008 – March 2009 (another example exhibited)
Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, Collection: MOCA's First Thirty Years, November 2009 – May 2010 (another example exhibited)
Sigean, France, Lieu D'Art Contemporain Narbonne, Playtime: Works from the Klosterfelde Collection, June - September 2011 (another example exhibited)
Art Institute of Chicago, Felix Gonzalez Torres in the Modern Wing, July 2011 – January 2012 (another example exhibited)
Philadelphia, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, An Odyssey: A Narrative of The Fabric Workshop and Museum, September – December 2012 (another example exhibited)
 

“Principales acquisitions,” La revue des musées de France Acquisitions, 2009-2010, Paris 2011, p. 88
The Israel Museum, “Selected New Acquisitions,” Jerusalem Magazine, Winter 2008 - Spring 2009, p. 36
Filipa Sanchez, Ellipse Foundation Contemporary Art Collection, Cascais 2006, illustrated
Dietmar Elger, Dietmar, et al., ed. Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Catalogue Raisonné, Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany, 1997, p. 125
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, et al, ed., Moment Ginza: City Guide. Stockholm: Magasin and Färgfabriken, 1997, pp. 28 and 29

This work is in very good condition overall and the electrical components are in good working order.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s use of light bulbs, sockets, and extension cords began with the seminal work, “Untitled” (March 5th) # 2, 1991. The later body of light string works can be interpreted as a continuation of his powerful meditation on the open-ended meaning of artworks, which include themes of eternal love, unity, mortality, loss, and regeneration — motifs explored throughout the artist’s oeuvre, including paper stacks, strings of beads, and piles of wrapped candies, among others. Despite the tragedy of his pre-emptively shortened artistic career, Felix Gonzalez-Torres created a legacy that continues to influence generations of artistic conceptual thinkers today.

As an artwork, the light string is imbued with the potential for change and an energy that is by design resilient and regenerative, simultaneously suggesting both presence and absence. This elegant form can be understood to metaphorically invoke a universal issue of the human condition: the vulnerability and inevitable decay of the human body. During a 1993 interview, Gonzalez-Torres discussed the creation of the stacked paper works which preceded his light strings, reflecting, “this refusal to make a static form, a monolithic sculpture, in favor of a disappearing, changing, unstable and fragile form was an attempt on my part to rehearse my fears of having Ross disappear day by day right in front of my eyes.” Despite the possibility of material being depleted from manifestable artworks during their exhibition, they may be replenished by the will of the presenter, allowing them to simultaneously represent perpetuation and change, as well as loss. The warm glow of the light bulbs communicates an affirmative message that can be understood as a ceaselessly unending love and above all, hope: the exceptional essence of Gonzalez-Torres’ extraordinary practice.

Interpretations of Gonzalez-Torres’s work are not restricted to a singular or definitive narrative. Instead, the work deliberately allows for expansive readings, as the artist encouraged his viewer to think and feel freely through their experience of its austere simplicity. He includes us into his unique conceptual dialogue, persuading us to come to terms with our own fears, dreams, and feelings. As with most of the artist’s work, the presence and active participation of the audience with the present work is a critical component of the piece’s complete meaning. As explained by Gonzalez-Torres: “I need the viewer, I need the public interaction. Without a public these works are nothing, nothing. I need the public to complete the work. I ask the public to help me, to take responsibility, to become part of my work, to join in.”

The reductive form of the light strings and other quotidian objects used in the artist’s practice evoke the readily available materials used by the Minimalist and conceptual sculptors from the 1960s and 70s, such as Carl Andre, Dan Flavin and Donald Judd. Unlike his predecessors, however, Gonzalez-Torres imbued the formal and emotive qualities of these non-traditional materials with an autobiographical narrative. These works, far from the cold ready-mades of his aesthetic predecessors, are rich with metaphors about the transience of life and the vulnerability of the human form. In contrast to the emotional coolness and neutrality of Minimalism, the use of common materials and intimate scales provide his works with a familiar and approachable experience, thereby disrupting the viewer’s usual expectation of his or her position in regards to a work of contemporary sculpture. Moreover, by envisioning ever-changing sculptures that redefine the definition of an “original” artwork, Gonzalez-Torres further collapses the boundaries of traditional and static sculpture and rejects the preciousness of modern art.

Gonzalez-Torres’s work exists within a series of contradictions; his oeuvre is simultaneously simple and complex, permanent and transient. As the artist himself described, his works are a metaphor for the relationship, “between public and private, between personal and social, between the fear of loss and the joy of loving, of growing, of changing, of always becoming more, of losing oneself slowly and then being replenished all over again from scratch.”

(All quotations extracted from an interview between the artist and Tim Rollins in: Rollins, Tim, Susan Cahan, and Jan Avgikos. Felix Gonzalez-Torres. New York: Art Resources Transfer, Inc., 1993. P. 5 – 31.)