Two important works by Felix Gonzales-Torres go to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Two works by Felix Gonzales-Torres from the Han Nefkens H+F Collection are given in long term loan to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.
Felix Gonzales-Torres, who died of AIDS in 1996, anchored his work in an acute consciousness of duration, death, love and loss. In the form of installations, advertising billboards or - in this case - puzzles, the work of Gonzales-Torres questions the relations between the public and private spheres. Often his puzzles articulate intimate dramas, in which the clue of death is an underlying element. The fragment of a love letter, "from the war front" (see image) sharpens the consciousness of the transience or the anguish of the loss of a loved one.
The artist uses objects from daily life which he plunges into a poetic atmosphere. His puzzles however, assembled and packaged in sealed plastic, cannot be dismantled. The puzzle, which is supposed to an occasion for social exchange, becomes a collector's object, fragile and precious.
Duality is always present in Gonzales-Torres's works: two clocks, two mirrors, two pillows, two light bulbs, two beds. The feeling of solitude and loss is thus conveyed through a poetics of the absence of 'the other'.
To view the second work that goes to Boijmans click
here
Text: catalogue 'The Suspended Moment' 2005