Felix Gonzalez-Torres
“Untitled”, 1991
curated by Sarah Cosulich & Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti
Referring to conceptual and minimalist art, the works of American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres (Cuba, 1957 – Miami, 1996) consist of common and familiar objects, such as candies heaped up in mounds or spread across the ground, printed sheets of paper stacked on the floor, strings of light bulbs installed in various configurations, beaded curtains hanging in a doorway, or pairs of mirrors and clocks.
“Untitled” (1991) consists of an image depicting an unmade double bed, installed in multiple outdoor billboard locations. The current installation includes La Pista 500 billboard and the city of Turin. When it was first exhibited across the boroughs of New York City in 1992, the work prompted an exploration of the boundary between public space and private life in an era marked by the HIV pandemic, stigmatised by public opinion that associated it with the behaviour of the gay community, considered transgressive and unacceptable to the conservative morality of the time. Yet the work’s title and its imagery allow for new interpretations and associations, influenced by the historical and social contexts in which it is displayed each time. The intimate and domestic image creates a strong contrast with adjacent advertisements, challenging social norms and revealing topics such as death, illness, pain, and isolation, as part of a web of interconnected societal, political, and historical conditions.
The city of Turin holds significant meaning in the history of Gonzalez-Torres’s work, as the artist was invited to Castello di Rivara in 1991, where he presented a series of legendary works. The billboard “Untitled” was first presented in Turin in 2000 during a group exhibition at Castello di Rivoli. Bringing “Untitled” back to the city more than twenty years later prompts reflection on how our perception of public space has changed, and on the experiences that have been layered in this historical period. The work raises still-relevant questions about the collective processing of loss, and regulations of individual freedoms that constrain autonomy in public space, in a historical moment that has disrupted our habits regarding mourning and absence.