Berlin. The exhibition virtually begins on the way to the museum, where one encounters people with posters under their arms, and gold candy wrappers litter the sidewalk. In the Hamburger Bahnhof itself, one can watch how the visitors greedily pounce on the candies or rush to the stacks of posters, kindly assisted by the attendants, who have rubber bands ready for better transportation. One asks oneself what the people actually do with the posters, many of which only show a light blue bar or the black frame of a death notice, and which can hardly be called decorative. Many visitors evidently come to this conclusion as well, since the garbage cans around the museum are literally filled with them.
This reflects the fragility of the concept of the ten-years-deceased Felix Gonzalez-Torres, to whom the NGBK has dedicated a small exhibition. Gonzalez-Torres’ aim is not a cynical exposure of blind consumption or greed, prominent subjects in his exhibitions. Nor is he out to undermine the art market or its fetishizing of originals, like some activist art from the 1980s. In fact, he is more concerned with a respectful treatment of visitors as full-bodied creatures. Gonzalez-Torres wishes to free himself from a traditional practice in which the artist, as the ultimate authority, presents a finished work to the visitors for contemplation. Instead, he faces them with individual decisions, because all visitors have to decide for themselves whether they like the poster, want to take it along and hang it up in their home, or even if they only want to suck on a piece of candy. Thus, in an unobtrusive way, he evokes responses and invites active participation. That this proposal triggers in many the impulse to snatch up what they can is the not-surprising reverse side of his approach – even if it unfortunately leads to clogged garbage cans.
Gonzalez-Torres thus involves the visitor not only phenomenologically as in Minimalism, which explores the perceptual possibilities of an object in space, but also summons direct participation. Withdrawing the sweets and the posters would change his works physically, because the pleasure of the sweets offers a bodily reference to that which is perceived visually. In his »Date Pieces« and portraits, on the other hand, he opens up associative spaces that invite visitors to fill them with their own experiences and knowledge. These year dates – either lined up under the ceiling as a frieze or set against a monochrome background – and the public or private events associated with them produce no logical, comprehensible narrative that needs to be quasi iconographically deciphered. This is why the information room that the curators at the Hamburger Bahnhof have set up to inform visitors about the individual events in the »Date Pieces« and portraits is so problematic. Quasi-official readings of the works are generated in this way and, with them, precisely the kind of hierarchies that Gonzalez-Torres wanted to avoid.
Just how important candidness and exchange were to the artist is illustrated by the conditions he tied to the acquisition of his works. The purchasers receive certificates that authorize them to refill the candies or stacks of paper as desired, and they are even left to decide how to install the works. He does not specify in any way the number of posters or candies, whether they should be piled up or spread out over the surface. The portraits originate through personal conversations with the client and are understood to be only a suggestion. Thus, the client may add or even substitute dates or events at his own discretion, as was the case at the Hamburger Bahnhof with the portrait of the artist’s gallerist Andrea Rosen, which refers to events far into the 21st century, long after the death of Gonzalez-Torres.
Even the works that do not directly call for participation convey a desire for sociability and harmony. However, individuality is not suppressed in Gonzalez-Torres’ hierarchy-free community, but rather encouraged to develop freely. This can be seen in his photos of disorganized flocks of birds in the open skies as well as in the two side-by-side round mirrors that, although they are identical, reflect different images due to their positioning. Far from exhibitionistically placing his own destiny in the foreground, his suffering from AIDS along with the early death of his partner, Ross Laycock, nonetheless left their mark on his work. It is ultimately irrelevant whether he drew on his own personal circumstances, for example in »Perfect Lovers«, because the two clocks that only tick so long at the same rate until one of the batteries grows weaker and eventually stops still symbolize the fateful development of relationships. It is equally insignificant that he photographs his own empty bed on a billboard poster with two head imprints on the pillows originating from him and Laycock, since even without this knowledge one feels the impression of loss. Here, private and public are mixed and thus become political, especially since the photo was shown on urban billboards (the work was not on view in Berlin). Like the clocks and the mirrors, the pillows include no hint of gender or sexual affiliation.
This longing for respectful community and tolerance can be viewed as the utopian component of Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ deeply human art, whose pathos has been viewed occasionally as kitsch – an impression aided by the frequent emphasis on mourning and loss and the subliminally nostalgic mood that prevails in his work. In the end, he most likely anticipated that respect and openness are difficult ideals to attain and that his posters would simply be discarded.
In June 2006, a comprehensive survey of the works of Felix Gonzalez-Torres was published by Steidl Verlag, Göttingen, edited by Julie Ault.
Translated by Jennifer Taylor-Gaida