![]() ![]() Examples of these contradictions include the way he structured courses as a professor, wrote press releases and texts, gave lectures, participated in interviews, and created varying strategies for each body of work. Throughout much of González-Torres's practices, he purposefully incorporated dissonant information and formats. González-Torres stated “the only thing permanent is change,” always questioning the stability of the art object. González-Torres was trained as a photographer and his oeuvre incorporates this medium in varying ways, he is well known for works that transform commonplace materials into installations that foster meaningful responses from audiences, as well as works with which audiences can choose to physically interact, and works that may be manifested anew and can change each time they are exhibited. González-Torres died in Miami in 1996 from AIDS-related illness. His practice continues to influence and be influenced by present-day cultural discourses. González-Torres is known for having made significant contributions to the field of conceptual art in the 1980s and 1990s. González-Torres’s practice incorporates a minimalist visual vocabulary and certain artworks that are composed of everyday materials such as strings of light bulbs, paired wall clocks, stacks of paper, and individually wrapped candies. He lived and worked primarily in New York City between 19 after attending university in Puerto Rico. ![]() "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) (1991)įélix González-Torres or Felix Gonzalez-Torres (Novem– January 9, 1996) was a Cuban-born American visual artist. and Elena are part of an intellectual class who are astute enough to understand that they don't belong here, and yet they treat the local population and environment - the very things they claim to embrace to free themselves from their past lives - with contempt."Untitled" (Go-Go Dancing Platform) (1991) What makes the characters so recognizable, so uncomfortable and so relevant, particularly in today's hipster-dominated culture, is how their intent to live consciously is thwarted by an utter lack of self-awareness. While J., whose fate drives the novel, feels anxiety and sorrow over the choices that eventually lead to the destruction of the environment, Elena is intolerable, accusing staff of breaking her sewing machine, swearing for no reason at the placid locals, and cordoning off the beach where she swims so the locals don't stare at her like "some sort of exotic animal." Although the characters are clearly stand-ins for capitalism and colonialism, whose insidious presence gradually overtakes the narrative, the opacity of the couple's thoughts and actions makes it difficult for readers to access their point of view. and Elena rarely express vulnerability or insight. But it's difficult to escape such malaise when they've brought it with them. thinks after a contested timber shipment sells for less money than he had hoped. "He had come here in order to escape a demeaning form of rationality that was as sterile as crude oil, as social climbing as bitumen," J. ![]() and Elena to turn the finca into a shop, and later, a timber business, decisions that agitate the already simmering tension between the couple as well as with the locals they employ in and around the plantation. Beyond the plantation, the coastline is "curved into a pair of claws to create a sweeping natural harbour," and everywhere the couple goes there are mangoes, papayas, melons and guanábanas.Ī poor financial investment quickly requires J. By contrast, the finca's surroundings, richly and sensuously rendered by González and Spanish-language translator Frank Wynne, burst with images of fecundity. When the couple arrives at the estate, or finca, however, the house, although a "wooden mansion," is run-down, filled with junk and without running water. ![]()
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