The Fabric Workshop is pleased to present the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres as the first exhibition in its new location. Held in conjunction with an exhibition of the artist's work at Beaver College Art Gallery, the exhibiton will open on Monday, February 14th with a reception to meet the artist from 5:00-7:00pm at The Fabric Workshop, and will be on view through the end of March. On Thursday, February 24th at 6:30pm, artist Tim Rollins will present a lecture on the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres at The Little Theater on Beaver College's campus.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres uses minimalist strategies and forms interwoven with emotional and socio-political content. Gonzalez-Torres' recurrent themes focus on love and loss, transience, the democratization of art, art history, and the artificial distinctions between public and private.
For this exhibition Gonzalez-Torres has chosen specific pieces to highlight The Fabric Workshop's new space. He often shows existing work by adapting the materials and form to new spaces which "opens the door to difference: difference of natural variation, difference of human treatment, difference of interpretation" (Arts Magazine, 1991). On view at The Fabric Workshop will be "Untitled" (Baci), a 42lb. mound of silver and blue foil-wrapped chocolates. Gonzalez-Torres invites viewers to take a piece of the candy and as his installation is continuously diminished, the notion of art as a commodity, traditionally considered precious and permanent, is altered. In establishing "tension between the promise of abundance and the threat of depletion" (The Los Angeles Times, 1991), he plays on the nature of a society submissive to the dichotomy of individuality and belonging.
Also exhibited will be "Untitled", an installation consisting of blue curtains, made in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop during the artist's residency. A simple drape of light blue fabric which hangs to the floor, the curtains are exhibited in several windows throughout The Fabric Workshop's gallery, office and print studios. Reflecting the duality of unity and loss in a relationship, "Untitled" (Perfect Lovers) consists of two synchronized clocks, where one will undoubtedly stop before the other.
Gonzalez-Torres presents "Untitled" (Baci) at The Fabric Workshop in contrast to "Untitled" (Public Opinion), over a half ton of small, black licorice candies (collection of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York), at Beaver College Art Gallery. Whereas the exhibition at The Fabric Workshop favors themes of love and relationships in Felix Gonzalez-Torres' work, the exhibition at Beaver will deal with more confrontational themes, such as this piece inspired by the Gulf War. In addition, Beaver will show three of his "Date" works.
Cuban-born American (1957), Felix Gonzalez-Torres lives and works in New York City. Among numerous awards, he is the recipient of two Artists' Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Pollock Krasner grant and a Gordon Matta-Clark grant. He has exhibited his work extensively throughout the United States and Europe, and is included in numerous museum and private collections. Gonzalez-Torres exhibited in the 1991 Whitney Biennial, and The Philadelphia Museum of Art has recently acquired "Untitled" (Petit Palais), one of his light string installations. Gonzalez-Torres is represented by Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, and is a member of Group Material, an art collaborative dedicated to cultural activism.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres' collaborative exhibition with The Fabric Workshop and Beaver College is made possible in part by a grant from the Visual Artists Public Projects Program of the National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibition program of The Fabric Workshop is supported by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Philip Morris Companies, ARA Services, The Barra Foundation, The Claneil Foundation, Hunt Manufacturing Company and the members of The Fabric Workshop. The exhibiton at Beaver College Art Gallery has also been funded by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Friends of Beaver College Art Gallery. Tim Rollins' lecture is made possible in part by a grant from the Montgomery County Foundation.