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Lot Essay
“Beauty is a power we should reinvest with our own purpose.” Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Dating from 1991, “Untitled” (March 5th) #2 is the first of Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s works to incorporate light bulbs, a form that would go on to be one of the artist’s most powerful and personal motifs. Successfully combining both formal and conceptual rigor, this simple, yet incredibly moving work contains many of the major themes that can be found throughout his career. Challenging the established narratives of Marcel Duchamp’s “Readymades” and Dan Flavin’s Lights, Gonzalez-Torres's work adds an emotional dimension to the cool aesthetics of Minimalism and Conceptual Art. Timely, yet also timeless, another example from this edition is in the permanent collections of the Tate, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Over the course of his career, Gonzalez-Torres created a total of twenty-five light works, with the present work belonging to the first incarnation. In the present work, the simplicity and elegance of the softly-glowing bulbs is enhanced by the duality of them hanging together in an oasis of space. Despite the visual starkness of this simple string of two bare lightbulbs suspended from intertwined electrical cables, they emit a warm, enveloping glow.
The period during which Gonzalez-Torres conceived and executed the present work was a particularly emotional time for the artist. Ross Laycock, his partner died of AIDS, followed by the death of his elderly father soon thereafter (March 5th was Laycock’s birthday). “The world I know is gone,” the artist wrote of that difficult period as he dealt with the deaths of those close to him, plus other friends and loved ones. It was also a difficult time politically, as in addition to the growing AIDS crisis, the lingering protests surrounding the launch of Operation Desert Storm (launched in August 1990), and the beating of the Black motorist Rodney King by members of the Los Angeles Police Department (on March 3rd1991) cast a dark cloud over the country. That Gonzalez-Torres should employ light as one of the main mediums of this work speaks to his hope in the determination of the human spirit.
Minimalism and Conceptual art while forging an intimate bond between the work of art and its viewer. He merges the formal austerity of Minimalism with metaphorical associations derived from his own personal narrative and socio-political circumstances of his time, while purposefully creating formal structures in the work that would allow them to remain perpetually open to new meanings. This ultimately allows him to re-write the parameters of art making and art viewing. In work that energizes and activates the hushed rigor of Minimalist sculpture while invoking the viewer’s own experience, Gonzalez-Torres has been described as Post-Minimal. “It depends on the day of the week. I choose from many different positions. I think I woke up on Monday in a political mood and on Tuesday in a very nostalgic mood and Wednesday in a realist mood. I don't think I'll limit myself to one choice. I'm shameless when it comes to that, I just take any position that will help me best express the way I think or feel about a particular issue. Formal strategies are there for your use" (F. Gonzalez- Torres, quoted in 3. Rollins, Tim, Susan Cahan, and Jan Avgikos. Felix Gonzalez-Torres. New York: Art Resources Transfer, Inc., 1993. P. 5 – 31).
“When I first made those two light bulbs I was in a total state of fear about losing my dialogue with Ross, of being just one.” Felix Gonzalez-Torres (N. Spector, “Travel as Metaphor,” Felix Gonzalez-Torres, exh. cat. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1995, p. 183)
Transforming the everyday into profound meditations on love and loss and renewal, Gonzalez- Torres’s works—including his iconic light strings, candy spills and paper stacks—offer uncompromising beauty and simplicity. Whether executed as simple strings of lightbulbs or glimmering floor sculptures, his forms echo the practice of Minimalist sculpture imbued with an underlying current of poetic intimacy and political content. And yet, a quiet revolutionary, Gonzalez-Torres’s pieces remain open-ended, inviting viewers to participate in their realization and the construction of meaning. Establishing an interaction and interdependency between himself, the work and the viewer, the art of Gonzalez-Torres conveys intense poignancy through sheer simplicity—never forcing itself on the viewer, only inviting contemplation.
Dating from 1991, “Untitled” (March 5th) #2 is the first of Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s works to incorporate light bulbs, a form that would go on to be one of the artist’s most powerful and personal motifs. Successfully combining both formal and conceptual rigor, this simple, yet incredibly moving work contains many of the major themes that can be found throughout his career. Challenging the established narratives of Marcel Duchamp’s “Readymades” and Dan Flavin’s Lights, Gonzalez-Torres's work adds an emotional dimension to the cool aesthetics of Minimalism and Conceptual Art. Timely, yet also timeless, another example from this edition is in the permanent collections of the Tate, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Over the course of his career, Gonzalez-Torres created a total of twenty-five light works, with the present work belonging to the first incarnation. In the present work, the simplicity and elegance of the softly-glowing bulbs is enhanced by the duality of them hanging together in an oasis of space. Despite the visual starkness of this simple string of two bare lightbulbs suspended from intertwined electrical cables, they emit a warm, enveloping glow.
The period during which Gonzalez-Torres conceived and executed the present work was a particularly emotional time for the artist. Ross Laycock, his partner died of AIDS, followed by the death of his elderly father soon thereafter (March 5th was Laycock’s birthday). “The world I know is gone,” the artist wrote of that difficult period as he dealt with the deaths of those close to him, plus other friends and loved ones. It was also a difficult time politically, as in addition to the growing AIDS crisis, the lingering protests surrounding the launch of Operation Desert Storm (launched in August 1990), and the beating of the Black motorist Rodney King by members of the Los Angeles Police Department (on March 3rd1991) cast a dark cloud over the country. That Gonzalez-Torres should employ light as one of the main mediums of this work speaks to his hope in the determination of the human spirit.
Minimalism and Conceptual art while forging an intimate bond between the work of art and its viewer. He merges the formal austerity of Minimalism with metaphorical associations derived from his own personal narrative and socio-political circumstances of his time, while purposefully creating formal structures in the work that would allow them to remain perpetually open to new meanings. This ultimately allows him to re-write the parameters of art making and art viewing. In work that energizes and activates the hushed rigor of Minimalist sculpture while invoking the viewer’s own experience, Gonzalez-Torres has been described as Post-Minimal. “It depends on the day of the week. I choose from many different positions. I think I woke up on Monday in a political mood and on Tuesday in a very nostalgic mood and Wednesday in a realist mood. I don't think I'll limit myself to one choice. I'm shameless when it comes to that, I just take any position that will help me best express the way I think or feel about a particular issue. Formal strategies are there for your use" (F. Gonzalez- Torres, quoted in 3. Rollins, Tim, Susan Cahan, and Jan Avgikos. Felix Gonzalez-Torres. New York: Art Resources Transfer, Inc., 1993. P. 5 – 31).
“When I first made those two light bulbs I was in a total state of fear about losing my dialogue with Ross, of being just one.” Felix Gonzalez-Torres (N. Spector, “Travel as Metaphor,” Felix Gonzalez-Torres, exh. cat. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1995, p. 183)
Transforming the everyday into profound meditations on love and loss and renewal, Gonzalez- Torres’s works—including his iconic light strings, candy spills and paper stacks—offer uncompromising beauty and simplicity. Whether executed as simple strings of lightbulbs or glimmering floor sculptures, his forms echo the practice of Minimalist sculpture imbued with an underlying current of poetic intimacy and political content. And yet, a quiet revolutionary, Gonzalez-Torres’s pieces remain open-ended, inviting viewers to participate in their realization and the construction of meaning. Establishing an interaction and interdependency between himself, the work and the viewer, the art of Gonzalez-Torres conveys intense poignancy through sheer simplicity—never forcing itself on the viewer, only inviting contemplation.