I will never forget the first time I encountered the groundbreaking 1991 work of Cuban-born queer artistFelix González-Torres called "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.).
A pile of shiny candies in a museum gallery beckoned me to hesitantly grab and eat one. Then I read the label explaining the installation: "This is González-Torres's unconventional portrait of his partner, Ross Laycock, who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1991. The candies' combined weight, 175 pounds, corresponds to Laycock's ideal weight before he got ill. Visitors are invited to sample the sweets. As the candy disappears, the pile shrinks in mass and weight, reenacting the debilitating effects of Laycock's illness."
2016 exhibition of "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) in New YorkCourtesy Ignacio Darnaude
When I understood the profound meaning of this installation as an AIDS memorial, and realized how, as the museum keeps replenishing the pile, Felix is giving his partner eternal life, I burst into tears, experiencing the transformative power of art.
Felix, who died from AIDS complications in 1996, invites the viewer to participate in his works, which combine a minimalistic aesthetic with a very personal and political stance imbued with identities tied to race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic and immigrant status.
There is probably no artist more identified with the AIDS crisis than Felix — he once famously compared his role to "a virus, an imposter, an infiltrator" seeking to "always replicate myself together with those institutions" of power. His seminal works have turned him into one of the most important artists of the late '80s and early '90s, with his message reverberating louder than ever in our present times.
"Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) in present day at the Smithsonian National Portrait GalleryCourtesy Ignacio Darnaude
I recently flew to Washington D.C., to view a retrospective of Felix's work titled "Always to Return," showing at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery until July 6.
My worries began when the exhibition's introductory sign omitted Felix's connection to the AIDS crisis, highlighting instead the "multiple dynamic meanings of his work." My fears turned into outrage when I read the museum label for "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), which, instead of explaining the installation's title and meaning, refers to "175 pounds as ideal weight," not specifically Ross's.
Also, the museum displays the candy on a narrow path along the floor instead of in a pile, expressing on a separate label that it is entitled to "decide the size and configuration for this installation as well as to whether to replenish the candy." Be that as it may, the Smithsonian's chosen set-up destroys the monumental allegorical and emotional impact of seeing Felix's candy pile diminish.
When I posted about this erasure on my Instagram on December 19, the post received a visceral response from hundreds of readers and museum visitors who shared my indignation, including a story posted by actor Matt Bomer, saying, "Please stop erasing queer history @smithsoniannpg. Honor the intent of the artists you display. Please help if you can."
The museum's social media account tepidly responded to my Instagram post: "The focus of the exhibition is to highlight Felix's revolutionary work in portraiture. Across the exhibition and its various locations, we have put his artworks in conversation with the museum's collection — including portraits of queer figures — to provide further context around the artist's practice." It also noted that "references" to Laycock and Felix's life are found "throughout the show."
The irony is that, by not explaining what Portrait of Ross in L.A. truly means, the National Portrait Gallery has turned his work into an esoteric cypher, depriving visitors from experiencing Felix's revolutionary work in portraiture. Instead of inducing emotion and tears, I witnessed people blissfully taking pictures of pretty candy — empty calories on the floor robbed of their stirring spirit.
Another exhibition label, which unfruitfully connects Felix's work to the queer literary icon Walt Whitman, "who requested medicinal candy for injured soldiers," also ignores a golden opportunity to explain Felix's intention. As the catalog is not yet available to supply additional information, even the museum's staff is in the dark. When I explained the installation's meaning to staff at the information desk, they gasped and said, "Now it makes sense."
What makes this erasure even more unfathomable is that it's taking place at the National Portrait Gallery, which included this same installation in a 2010 show, "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture."The show's co-curator, Jonathan D. Katz, described "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in LA) in this Smithsonian video then as "an emblem of the AIDS crisis."
Katz explains in this video how "it was important for Felix to get his work in museums and, to do so, he had to speak indirectly about AIDS, bypassing the censorship and homophobic resistance that followed Jesse Helms and the crisis around the representation of gay male sexuality after the Corcoran Gallery canceled the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition in 1989."
Katz also throws light into some of the evocative meanings elicited by "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.): "When we put the candy in our mouth, we participate in the diminishment, directly and personally, of his partner. We also engage in the Catholic ritual of communion and potentially take contagion into ourselves."
Instead of exploring these poignant and provocative interpretations, it's devastating to see how the labels at the current Smithsonian retrospective focus on banal questions such as, "Can I eat a portrait? Is it OK to take something from a museum? Is this art whether or not I do these things? We leave these decisions to you."
To add insult to injury, this travesty is taking place not long after the Art Institute of Chicago committed the same misstep and was forced to change the explanation label after controversy ensued.
Multiple articles point out how this "reinterpretation" of Felix's work started when David Zwirner and Andrea Rosen Gallery started co-representing the artist's estate in 2017. These articles point to a concerted effort by the Felix González-Torres Foundation to disassociate his work from AIDS and his queerness, both crucial factors in his work, under the guise of preserving the "ambiguity and multiplicity of meaning of Felix's work." The most referenced theory for this repositioning is that it attracts the upper echelon of richer buyers and museums, who have historically been more interested in straight white male artists.
When the controversy over Portrait of Ross in L.A.'s labeling exploded in Chicago, a representative of the foundation, speaking to the Chicago Tribune, essentially side-stepped the criticism and burden-shifted the work's interpretation to the audience. "The Art Institute’s conscientious choice to present diverse information simultaneously — in the wall label as well as the accessible audio guide — sets an example of trust in the viewer to take an active role in their experiences, interpretations, and contributions to the work,” they said. The Tribune also noted how this echoed the foundation's mission statement, which is a “commitment to foster expansive thinking, and to uphold Gonzalez-Torres’s intention to maintain space for diverse and changing points of view and questioning around the work.”
The reality is, however, that Felix was very specific about the works being informed by seeing Ross disappear from his life, thus the artwork's title. Felix even said that Ross was the primary audience for his art.
It's cruel and disingenuous for the artist's estate to use acrobatic excuses and allude that the meaning of "Portrait of Ross in L.A.," created the year Ross died, should be left to the viewer's interpretation, ignoring the elephant in the room, that it is an AIDS memorial.
This erasure is even more harrowing in today's climate, when identity and restitution are at the core of our culture and books with LGBTQ+ themes are banned while lawmakers introduce anti-LGBTQ+ bills.
I've written to the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, expressing my dismay at their disservice to the artist's legacy and to the millions of people who lived during the devastation of AIDS and look at this memorial as a beacon of hope. The museum's reply so far is a succinct email from Rhea Combs, the director of curatorial affairs, saying, "We appreciate your perspective as a visitor to our galleries and are taking your comments on social media and your visitor comment card into consideration."
I truly hope they step up by rectifying their message, setting up an example for every other museum to stop perpetuating this atrocity once and for all.
Ignacio Darnaude, an art scholar and lecturer, is currently developing the docuseries Hiding in Plain Sight: Breaking the Queer Code in Art. View his lectures and articles on queer art history at linktr.ee/breakingthegaycodeinart
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2016 exhibition of "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) in New YorkCourtesy Ignacio Darnaude
"Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) in present day at the Smithsonian National Portrait GalleryCourtesy Ignacio Darnaude
