Felix Gonzalez-Torres, the Cuban-born American artist, was known for stretching the bounds of portraiture. His most famous work, “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in LA), which consists of 175 pounds of individually wrapped candies, is a depiction of his partner, Ross Laycock, who died of AIDS in 1991. That piece, and the other defining art from his career, will be on display as part of “Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always To Return,” an exhibition that opens today at the National Portrait Gallery, in partnership with the Archives of American Art.
“Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in LA), derives its power from an unexpected twist: Visitors can take the candy. As a result, the work’s shape and form change each day, evoking a sense of loss. (Gonzalez-Torres himself passed away from AIDS in 1996, at age 38.) The museum will replace the candy over time, countering that sense of loss with the “endless replenishment” that Gonzalez-Torres envisioned for the piece. “One of the great things about any Felix show is that things change,” says exhibition co-curator Josh T. Franco. Most everyone will have a different response to a piece, of course. “But with Felix,” he says, “the work itself actually changes, too, with the world and with you.”
Another candy portrait, “Untitled” (Portrait of Dad), made from pieces of white saltwater taffy, evokes the slow loss of a loved one. And “Untitled” (Death by Gun), features “Men of Progress,” a Civil War-era group portrait of American inventors, including Samuel Colt, who popularized the revolver. Underneath, a stack of 45-inch by 33-inch papers contain images from a 1989 Time magazine story that spotlighted every gun-related death for one week that May. Visitors can take a sheet home as a way of assigning their own meaning to the piece.
For the first time in the US, all 55 installments of Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled” puzzle series will be on display together at the exhibition. These works—photographs taken by Gonzalez-Torres and made into puzzles— depict snapshots from his life, creating a large-scale autobiographical tribute. Other pieces include “Untitled” (Leaves of Grass), which was fabricated using string lights and inspired by Walt Whitman.
In addition to the Portrait Gallery, the curators have also mounted his art at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library, outside on 8th Street between F and E Streets, and on the museum’s second-floor South Portico.
The exhibit, which is free, runs until July 6, 2025.
