Félix González Torres' evocative and conceptual art...

12:19 p.m.

05/29/17 - David Zwirner's Art Gallery in New York is currently exhibiting a series of installations by Félix González Torres (1957-1996), distributed in 9 different areas. The artworks range from the very intimate to more universal concepts and are placed taking full advantage of the architectural spaces offered by the gallery.

The piece "Chemo" (1991) divides one of the rooms and it's a wall-to-wall beads-curtain. To move from one side to the other, visitors must go through the curtain, something that turns real the idea of the artist: the beads represent the white blood cells lost in each chemo session.

Chemo, by Félix González Torres (1991)

The first artwork on display, at the beginning of the exhibition, is "Untitled (Perfect Lovers)" in which two simple wall clocks, placed side by side, mark the time with a 2-seconds difference. During montage, both clocks were perfectly synchronized at the exact same time, but as days went by, the mismatch occurred. The clocks, although identical, work differently and there will be a time when one of them will stop working. Perfect lovers, according to González Torres, don't walk in life at the same time, because it is impossible to remain synchronized, and one of them might even stop forever, as it happened with the artist's partner.

Untitled (Perfect Lovers), by Félix González Torres (1987 – 1990)

Wall clocks / Measures: 13 ½ x 27 x ¼ inches

Love is a recurring subject, as it's death, in González Torres' artworks. The sheer blue curtains (Loverboy) that move with the breeze generated by the movement of the visitors, can present different configurations according to the exhibition venue. In the gallery, they cover all the windows, creating the feeling of emptiness, like no one lives there anymore.

All the artworks are referred to Ross, González Torres' lover who died very young. In his artworks, he tries to recover what he has lost. It's an ever-ending memorial, an eternal mourning that never ceases to be deeply touching.