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Epiphany of Art: Félix González-Torres Meets The Young Mind
I believe that art speaks to itself over time. An epiphany does not last, it collapses into a feeling of brightness, which, if you’re lucky, is accessible when you need it most.I was four years old, unwrapping a handful of mystery candies. The cellophane crinkled. I was unable to put words to the taste. They were revealed by my mother to be a tough, chewy confection called licorice.
I stood in front of an endless spill of candy, filling my palms with licorice in an effort to prolong my memory of the new flavor. This was not a Candy Shop, and the confections were not contained by stacked plastic drawers, but fashioned into a rectangular rug. The spectacle was housed within sterile white walls. An unlikely site of a sugar rush, the year was 2007, and the scene was the 52nd International Venice Biennale.
I am aware that I was not the prime candidate for art viewership. I was easily distracted and irritable before lunch time. Beyond the classic details of youthful temperament, I did not feel at home in art spaces. I could not decipher a word of wall text, and the security guards stared me down as if I was going to attempt a heist. More than anything I did not understand why art was deemed untouchable.
The guardians of the museum opposed the arts I partook in, like the art of finger painting, which required me to be physically within the paint. When I finished a work, it remained a part of my everyday life. I would eat cheerios out of my own ceramic bowl, or hang upside down on the monkeybars in a hand tie dyed dress.
My art was intertwined with my life as a child, and the idea that the museum promoted the opposite did not compute to me. It was intuitive to me that a Joan Mitchell laden with texture, or the warm light of a James Turrell, were things to be close to. While the Biennale might have been Disneyland for art lovers, I longed for Space Mountain. I drifted between pavilions, viewing the artwork with the detachment and blur of a DVD rewind. The Biennale meant I needed to put my hands in my back pockets, and wait for the day to pass.
I do not remember much, but I remember the candy. The artist was Félix González-Torres, a Cuban-born, American citizen posthumously representing the United States. It was both my childhood obsession with sugar, and the tactility inherent to Félix González-Torres’ art, that make this my first memory of feeling free within an institution of fine art. We visited another exhibition of the artist’s work some years later. This time, bright, polychromatic candies inhabited a corner.
In a world where I was scolded for stepping over black tape, and the tone of my laughter echoed an octave too high, his work made me curious, and made my heart feel warm. It was all a sort of epiphany.
17 years later, I am an Art History student, gazing at the projector as we speak about conceptual artworks regarding grief. “This is Félix González-Torres,” states my professor. She explains that he is unbound by one medium, using words and images, as well as objects, to build meaning. His installations range from thick stacks of paper for public taking, to grand rooms of billowing curtains, to billboards placed in the cityscape, to photographs printed on puzzles. Many of these works function as a part to whole, prompting the viewer to value the patterns yielded by audience engagement.
“González-Torres leaves many of his works untitled to allow for participation,” she states, flipping the projector. I am confronted with a familiar 700 pound spill of black-rod licorice. This is Untitled (Public Opinion). As the projector flickers, the next slide introduces the 175 pound corner of rainbow confections, Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A).
“The work begins as 175 pounds of candy. This is the healthy weight of Ross, González-Torres‘ lover, before his body weight diminishes due to AIDS. As the exhibition continues and visitors are encouraged to take candy, the pile shrinks, as does Ross’ body,” my professor says, softly.
Words do not come easily to me now. I am first haunted by my naiveté. I was lured in by the universal desire for sweetness, and all I did was consume. Like the greediness of consuming the candies, the museum goer consumes the artist’s emotions and objects of self expression for entertainment. More than my ignorance, I am struck by the work as a selfless act: when the art was concieved from a place of deep sorrow, the artist gifted me joy. He gifted me belonging.
Despite the melancholy of the dwindling candy and the loss that it nods to, there always lies the possibility of replenishment. Installed in museum corners, and winding down hallways of family homes, Ross’ portrait lives forever. He is everywhere, and he is immortal.
The beauty of the work lies within the individual’s ability to activate it. Perhaps I reflected back a gift to the artist: the presence of a child. I stood at the threshold of the works with desire and in awe. I would like to think that my four year old self’s emanation of love and gratitude is as important to the ever-changing meaning of the work as is the recognition of the hollow space carved out by absence. My intuition tethered me to the work, and years later, my emotional, intellectual self became immersed in it anew. These sensibilities are displayed in the 52nd Biennale’s apt title: Think with the Senses - Feel with the Mind.
Struggling to find a balance in my past and present perception of the work, between thinking and feeling, I find the words of Robert Storr, the curator of the exhibition that changed my life. Storr writes,
“From Plato onwards philosophers have divided and compartmentalized human consciousness more or less explicitly pitting one faculty against another; mind versus body, reason versus unreason, thought versus feeling, criticality versus intuition, the intellect versus the senses, the conceptual versus the perceptual...Think with the Senses - Feel with the Mind is predicated on the conviction that art is now, as it has always been, the means by which humans are made aware of the whole of their being.”