Tag Archives: Felix Gonzalez-Torres

FELIX GONZALEZ–TORRES

“I believe that irony is still a very useful tool to create meaning. For me, irony stops information in its tracks and makes it unravel.” — Felix Gonzalez–Torres*

A visitor to FELIX GONZALEZ–TORRES (at David Zwirner in New York), confronted by a room-dividing wall of glass beads hanging from the ceiling, sticks out his hand and runs it along the length of the curtain, evoking the unmistakable sound of the boudoir. There are stacks of paper to be shared, candy to be eaten, go-go boys to be ogled. The silent scream in the work of Gonzalez-Torres is drowned—unraveled—by laughter.

FELIX GONZALEZ–TORRES, through June 24.

DAVID ZWIRNER, 537 West 20th Street, New York City.

*ArtCenter Talks: Graduate Seminar–The First Decade, 1986–1995, ed. Stan Douglas (New York: David Zwirner Books, 2016).

“A special talk and book event to celebrate the release of [the publication] FELIX GONZALEZ–TORRES: SPECIFIC OBJECTS WITHOUT SPECIFIC FORM will be held at the Fondation Beyeler during Art Basel. Elena Filipovic and Tino Sehgal will be present in conversation about Gonzalez-Torres’s work, the structure of the exhibition, and the publication.

“[This volume] documents the groundbreaking retrospective curated by Filipovic with the artists Danh VoCarol Bove, and Sehgal that traveled to Wiels Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels, Fondation Beyeler in Basel, and MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt in 2010 and 2011.”**

FELIX GONZALEZ–TORRES: SPECIFIC OBJECTS WITHOUT SPECIFIC FORM, Thursday, June 15.

FONDATION BEYELER, Baselstrasse 101, Basel.

artbook.com/9783863359737.html

**davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/felix-gonzalez-torres

For information on the Andrea Rosen Gallery‘s co-representation of the estate of Felix Gonzalez–Torres, see:

artreview.com/news/news_22_feb_17_andrea_rosen_closes_gallery/

Image credit © The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation. Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York and David Zwirner, New York/London

THE ’90S AT REGEN PROJECTS

Regen Projects’ Spring 2017 show is an extraordinary survey of art from the 1990s.

WHAT I LOVED: SELECTED WORKS FROM THE ’90S includes Catherine Opie’s Vaginal Davis and Justin Bond; Glenn Ligon’s Untitled (I Remember the Very Day); Lari Pittman’s Existential and Needy; Karen Kilimnik’s Actresses sisters as murderers; erotic work from Wolfgang Tillmans, Marilyn Minter, and Cindy Sherman; Elizabeth Peyton’s Stephen Malkmus; Jack Pierson’s large collage tribute to ’50s iconography, Self Portrait (James Dean); Mike Kelley’s Party Girl; wall texts by Kara Walker and Lawrence Weiner; and an extensive series of drawings by Raymond Pettibon. Sixty works by 27 artists are on view.

WHAT I LOVED: SELECTED WORKS FROM THE ’90S, through April 13, 2017.

REGEN PROJECTS, Los Angeles

regenprojects.com/exhibitions/what-i-loved-selected-works-from-the-90s

Glenn Ligon, Runaways [detail] 1993 Suite of 10 lithographs 16 x 12 inches each Courtesy Regen Projects Los Angeles

Glenn Ligon, Runaways [detail]1993
Suite of 10 lithographs
16 x 12 inches each
Courtesy Regen Projects Los Angeles

ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH – DAY 3

Paris, LA began our third day at the international arts bonanza Art Basel Miami Beach at a groundbreaking for 10 Museum Park, the first residential project by famed architect Zaha Hadid in North America. The site of a former gas station, tucked between two gleaming new residential skyscrapers, 10 Museum Park will rise 60 stories above Biscayne Boulevard.

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The building features Hadid’s signature curves as part of an elaborate visible exoskeleton, lacing up towards the multistory aquatic center and lounge at the skyscraper’s crown. The groundbreaking ceremony was packed with Miami developers and admirers of Hadid, including the Mayor of Miami, who presented the architect with a key to the city. Reserved yet gracious, she expressed happiness in being able to complete such an ambitious project.

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Across the street lies the Peréz Museum of Art, whos beautiful new campus by Herzog & de Meuron was completed last year. The palm-lined courtyard features a geodesic dome by legendary architect and designer Buckminster Fuller. As part of their inaugural exhibition, the Peréz showed Global Positioning Systems, which demonstrated the international scope of its collection and the various geopolitical interests of contemporary artists. Rikrit Tirivanij, Dara Friedman, Alfredo Jaar, and Fred Wilson were particularly notable.

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Next Paris, LA ventured to Miami’s new design district, filled with gleaming designer stores and yet another Buckminster Fuller dome–this one the entrance to a block-sized parking structure. The de la Cruz Collection featured a number of impressively installed Aaron Curry sculptures and drawings and large works by Mark Bradford. The third floor held two notable pieces by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Portrait of Dad) and Somewhere better than this place/Nowhere better than this place, around which small crowds of people clustered, listening to docents and taking mint candies or posters.

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Not far from the de la Cruz Collection, the Miami Institute of Contemporary Art featured a three-story lobby installation by Andra Ursuta, As I Lay Dying. The centerpiece was a disturbing clay figure, covered in wax–recalling a suicidal leap from the atrium’s third floor or a violent rape. On the museum’s upper floors, “psychiatrists” in white lab coats led visitors around Pedro Reyes’ Sanatorium, a series of rooms where participants were encouraged to divulge their secrets, relieve their stress, and share their life questions.

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At nearby Locust Projects, an installation by Daniel Arsham occupied the entire gallery floor. A huge circular pit dug into the floor was filled with crumbling casts of antiquated objects–boomboxes and walkmans, Super-8 and Polaroid cameras. It was quite literally a pit of obsolesence–echoed by the piece’s title, Welcome to the Future. The work was reminiscent of an indigenous burial pit, where pottery and other objects are ceremonially burned.

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Paris, LA finished tonight at the James Blake concert, hosted by the National YoungArts Foundation. A brilliant musical auteur from Britain, Blake’s music is soulful yet dystopian–velvet melodies often fracture into mechanical rhythms and deep bass “dub” sound. His hit single “Limit to Your Love” was the perfect way to end the day.

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