5 x 7 inches
Behind the simplicity and beauty of this untitled photograph of a brilliantly-colored flowerbed by Félix González-Torres are two remarkable stories of love, loss, and resilience. As with most of his works, the photograph is untitled followed by a parenthesis that provides some context clues. In this case, an inscription on the reverse of the photograph reads: For Laura (Alice B. Toklas + Gertrude Stein Flower Bed in Paris). Alice B. Toklas moved to Paris in 1906, leaving San Francisco after its devastating earthquake. She met Gertrude Stein the day after she arrived in Paris, and they remained life partners until Stein’s death forty years later. The couple was known as an integral facet of the Parisian avant-garde, hosting figures such as Picasso, Matisse, Braque, and Hemingway. Stein wrote. Taken four years before González-Torres passed away due to AIDS in 1996, this photograph is at once an homage to the couple’s story of love, their strength and resilience, as well as a deeply personal mediation on his own experience of love and loss. This romantic and wistfully melancholic work documents the historical precedent for influential, openly gay culture makers, and is an homage to their memory and significance.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres is known for taking everyday objects and situations and imbuing them with powerful new meanings. Although his formal language echoes Minimal and Conceptual art, the striking visual simplicity and beauty of his installations operate as vehicles to lure audiences, allowing him to incorporate deeply personal narratives, and more broadly to serve humanistic ends by addressing themes relating to identity, gender, desire, love, and loss. Several pieces from his oeuvre relate to his experience as an openly gay man who experienced the devastating effects that the AIDS epidemic in the US had on the queer community. The celebrated works Untitled (Perfect Lovers) (1991), consisting of two store-bought wall clocks ticking next to each other, and Untitled (1991), a billboard with the image of an empty, unmade bed—are both examples of deeply personal responses to the passing of his long-time partner, Ross Laycock, from AIDS.
Orang Phebien: Telling the story of the Baweanese | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Illustration: Hadi Osni August 5, 2020 Lesser known narratives involving migration in Singapore are in the spotlight with The Arts House’ latest edition of LumiNation ...
Weekly Picks: Malaysia (16 – 22 July 2018) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Malaysia July 16, 2018 Hua (華) Settler Imaginary in Borneo , at Malaysia Design Archive, 19 July 8pm Academic Dr Zhou Hau Liew presents ‘ Preliminary Thoughts on the Hua Settler Imaginary in Borneo: Cultural Mapping, Revolutionary Communism, and the Ideas of Chineseness ’...
Comprised of fifty-one photographic postcards, Antin’s 100 Boots is an epic visual narrative in which 100 black rubber boots stand in for a fictional “hero” making a “trip” from California to New York City...
Invited in 2007 to the Museum Folkwang in Essen (Germany), Simon Starling questioned its history: known for its collections and particularly for its early engagement in favor of modern art (including the acquisition and exhibition of works by Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Matisse), then destroyed during the Second World War, the museum was pillaged for its masterpieces of ‘degenerate art’ by the nazis...
Binelde Hyrcan’s video “Cambeck” is a playful study of four boys on a beach in Angola playing in a chauffeured car made of sand...
A Jacob Lawrence Expert on a Profile of Him from ARTnews’s Archives – ARTnews.com Skip to main content By Alex Greenberger Plus Icon Alex Greenberger Senior Editor, ARTnews View All January 24, 2020 1:35pm George Chinsee Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) was one of the deftest documentarians of African-American life in the United States, and over the next few years, people across the country will get a chance to see one of his greatest series of paintings, “Struggle: From the History of the American People” (1954–56), united in full for the first time...
Zhang Kechun’s photographic series The Yellow River documents the effects of modernization along the eponymous Yellow River, the second longest in Asia...
In 8 Ball Surfboard (1995),Alexis Smith combines her long-term interests in California culture and conceptual assemblage...
Adrien Missika follows in the footsteps of the Brazilian landscape architect and artist Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994), a designer of gardens, parks and promenades who introduced modern landscape architecture to Brazil...
Open Call for AE x Goethe-Institut Critical Writing Micro-Residency 2021/2022 | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints March 12, 2021 ArtsEquator and Goethe-Institut Singapore are pleased to announce the launch of the inaugural AE x Goethe-Institut Critical Writing Micro-Residency 2021/2022 ...
Gregory Halpern spent five years shooting ZZYZX , and another year editing the results, from an estimated thousand rolls of film, about half of which were shot in the final year after his Guggenheim Fellowship enabled him to live in California...
« L’Art du livre », de Michel Melot et Anne Zali : la splendeur à l’ouvrage Offrir Le Monde Article réservé aux abonnés Reliure originale en soie violette brodée d’or, fleurs et ornements en soie, chiffre de Marie de Médicis et couronne en perles fines, dos long à semé de fleurs de lis dans un encadrement, ruban de gros de Tours parme, avec lisière en dentelle dorée...
Drowned Wood Standing Coiled (2011) consists of two sculptures, inextricably linked...