Monday December 1, 2025 (World AIDS Day)
Felix Gonzalez-Torres (American, born Cuba, 1957–1996)
“Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991, Candies in variously colored wrappers, Dimensions vary with installation; ideal weight 175 lbs.
“Although it avoids literal representation, this is a work about queer desire, queer bodies, and queer history. It is named after his love and life partner, Ross Laycock, and is about his personal experience of AIDS as well as the AIDS Crisis as a whole. The ‘ideal weight of 175 lb’ is a reference to Ross’ healthy weight, which diminished because of the virus. …As visitors to the gallery take the candies (as they are invited to do) it speaks to the weight loss experienced by Ross as he fought the virus. …Ross died from complications due to AIDS on January 24th, 1991, and Félix would go on to make this work later that same year.” from Queer Art History
“Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957–1996) was one of the most significant artists to emerge in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In its reduced formal vocabulary, conceptual rigor, and evocative use of everyday materials, the artist’s work resonates with meaning that is at once specific and mutable, rigorous and generous, poetic and political.
Gonzalez-Torres was an American artist born in Guáimaro, Cuba. He lived and worked in New York City between 1979 and 1995. Gonzalez-Torres died in Miami on January 9, 1996 from AIDS-related causes. He began his art studies at the University of Puerto Rico before moving to New York City, where he attended the Whitney Independent Study Program, first in 1981 and again in 1983. He received his BFA from Pratt Institute, New York, in 1983 and his MFA from the International Center of Photography and New York University in 1987.” from David Zwirner’s website