The Met to Present First Major Felix Gonzalez-Torres Show in NYC in Decades
Scattered across the museum's permanent collection galleries, "The Spaces Between" brings together more than 40 works from the late conceptual artist.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will unveil a major exhibition featuring the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres for the first time in New York in over three decades, opening in June. Titled "The Spaces Between," the exhibition is a joint effort with the Art Institute of Chicago, and will showcase more than 40 pieces spanning various mediums, including installation, sculpture, photography, painting, and video.
The works, distributed across 14 of the museum's permanent collection galleries, will be situated alongside 5,000 years of human creativity, as stated by museum director Max Hollein.
Highlights of the exhibition include works from the late 1980s and early 1990s that encapsulate Gonzalez-Torres' politically charged conceptual practice, which often explored themes of desire, love, loss, and the AIDS epidemic. These include "Untitled (Go-Go Dancing Platform)" (1991), a light blue platform with lightbulbs activated daily by a dancer in silver lamé briefs, tube socks, and sneakers; "Untitled (Perfect Lovers)" (1997-90), a pair of unsynchronized clocks; and the candy pile "Untitled (Revenge)" (1991).
Gonzalez-Torres' work, which never separated personal and political themes, was forged during the AIDS crisis. His ability to create work with open-ended meanings that could be embedded into historical contexts is noted by The Met's modern and contemporary art curator David Breslin. Despite the openness of his work often leading to longevity, it has also faced curatorial interpretations that have sparked public controversy.
Some interpretations have been criticized, such as in 2022 when the Art Institute of Chicago reinstalled "Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)" (1991) without mentioning AIDS or the artist's deceased lover, Ross Laycock, in its label. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic and rising anti-Asian violence, questions were raised about a restaging of Gonzalez-Torres' 1990 "Untitled" (Fortune Cookie Corner) by David Zwirner and Andrea Rosen, which took place at the height of the pandemic.
Gonzalez-Torres believed that artworks could never be apolitical or inert, a stance that appears central to "The Spaces Between," where the artist's work will be presented as both a historical document and an ever-evolving piece resonating with new significances.
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