This piece, made up of an innocuous pile of brightly wrapped candies, is likely one of the most recognizable works of queer American art. Its iconic status made it all the more surprising for folks in the queer community to discover that, for a time, all mention of homosexuality and the piece’s subject had been removed from the installation’s label.
Cuban-American artist Félix González-Torres created “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) in 1991 to represent the body of his partner, Ross Laycock, whose own body was deteriorating throughout his battle with AIDS. The interactive sculpture invites the visitor to take a piece of candy from the piece, decreasing its ideal 175 pound weight in the same way that Ross’s own weight declined.
There are any number of messages one can draw from the piece: the symbolism of the sweetness being slowly taken, the allegory of communion (reflecting González-Torres’ own Catholicism), the call on authority to step in and help as the museum helps in replenishing the display, etc.
The one message that cannot be overlooked without erasing queer history, however, is the context of its subject.
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Yet, for several months, the Art Institute of Chicago had the installation up with a label entirely omitting its context, instead opting for aesthetic description.
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On September 28th, members of the community brought this omission to wider attention with a letter to the Windy City Times and a highly circulated outrage tweet.
The tweet calls the piece’s omissive label “an unconsciable [sic] and banal evil”:
When I don’t renew my @artinstitutechi membership for the first time, it’s because AIC desecrated “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres. The erasure of Ross’s memory and Gonzalez-Torres’s intent in the new description is an unconsciable and banal evil. pic.twitter.com/qzwUaja8s8
— Will Scullin (@willscullin) September 28, 2022
Other users have described the change as “an appalling, senseless act of erasure“, “an astonishingly awful job of curation“, and “conservative donor appeasement“.
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The museum has since updated the label in response to community outrage. The new label includes one sentence referencing the queer context of the piece:
“Regardless of its physical shape, the label lists its ideal weight, likely corresponding to the average body weight of an adult male, or perhaps the ideal weight of the subject referred to in the title, Ross Laycock, the artist’s partner who died of complications from AIDS in 1991, as did Gonzalez-Torres in 1996.”
In response to Queerty’s request for comment, a spokesperson for the Art Institute wrote, “We continually update labels to introduce different types of context. In this case, we heard visitor feedback to the previous label and took the opportunity to revise the text.”
The revised label for the installation as of September 29th can be found here.
Fahd
Art Institute of Chicago: better before, but always overrated.
EddieB
“introduce different types of context?” I suppose they would update GUERNICA”S to read “a carefree romp with farm animals.”
Den
I have always felt that an artwork fails when it’s intention or meaning is not accessible without either an artist’s statement or curatorial texts. That has often made conceptual work difficult for me, being drawn instead to works with strong formal aspects or narrative content. Gonzalez-Torres’ work is incredibly varied and some of it is very powerful, others engaging or intriguing without the need to read what it is about.
Though this work is not, to me, one of his best, it depends entirely on curators being faithful to the artist’s intention and stated themes. So here the AIC has clearly failed. A failure made more galling because curators would obviously be well aware of Gonzalez-Torres’ intention and were either kowtowing to their donors, or whitewashing (straightwashing?) the piece for the public.
Prax07
A pile of candy is art? This is why I don’t care for a lot of what’s considered “art”.
still_onthemark
“I don’t get art. It always has to be explained to me and then I need someone to explain the explanation.” – George Costanza
Kangol2
Has the Art Institute of Chicago, which is one of the major art museums in the US and globally, offered any explanation for why they de-gayed this work of art, which is, as the article notes, quite famous itself?
González-Torres was one of the most important out, gay conceptual artists working on issues surround the AIDS epidemic, so why would they feel the need to whitewash their description? It is provocatively homophobic and AIDS-phobic. Truthfully why did they do this?