INAUGURAL EXHIBITION
Andrea,
I've been trying to work on the press release. Perhaps you can do a better job by expressing what you feel about the work in relation to present conditions (social, political, emotional, personal, or the present state of the art world or art history.)
I feel this particular installation is about vulnerability, about having nothing to lose, about the possibility of renewal through the recontextualization of each piece every time its taken by the viewer. It is also a comment on the passage of time and on the possibility of erasure and disappearance, it is about the poetics of space, presence, and the beauty of chance. The same chance that makes love possible. It is about life and its most radical definition or demarcation: death. Like all art, it is about leaving this place for some other place maybe better than this place.
Felix.
Judgement and fear seem to me to be the core injustice, inequality. Often Felix Gonzalez-Torres' work has been described as "understated", "unassuming", and "simple", yet at the same time socially, politically and personally arousing, as if there was a mystery in the possibility of this dichotomy. To me the key to the work's power is in its own non-judgmental condition. The work presents information without caption, without its own internal fear. The object and the viewer's interaction creates the acknowledgement of one's own repression.
It is significant that Felix Gonzalez-Torres is the first exhibition in my gallery. He is committed to the power art still possesses: to change the way people see, to bring about affirmative action, and to recognize our responsibility to the future. Felix is not afraid of content and knows the potency of the viewer's perception.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres has been the recipient of numerous awards including a 1989 NEA Artist Fellowship, and a 1989 fellowship from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. His work has been exhibited at The New Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Hallwalls, in public places, and many other galleries and alternative spaces. He has taught at NYU and is presently teaching at CALARTS.