Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957–1996) was a Cuban-born American conceptual artist whose deceptively simple installations — piles of candy, stacks of paper, strings of lightbulbs, paired clocks — carry some of the most devastating emotional weight in contemporary art. He spent his final years in Miami, where he died of AIDS-related illness in 1996.
Miami, United States. Conceptual Art. Candies in variously colored wrappers, endless supply.
I saw this piece when visiting the Met Breuer in New York with a friend, and it was incredible and heartbreaking at the same time. It's a piece where many visitors just saw free candy and took a piece without a second thought. That lines up so perfectly with the story the work tells. The pile is the same weight as his partner Ross, who was lost to HIV/AIDS, and over the course of the day people take and take and the mound slowly fades away, just like his lover did.
Will
