“Untitled” 1991

Felix Gonzalez-Torres made this stack of paper, titled "Untitled," as a form of conceptual portraiture. I love to think about how he may have felt making this. The piece consists of a pile of paper printed with text. The paper is offset, not quite aligned. Each sheet becomes a site of possibility, a moment of connection between the artist and the viewer. This work reminds me of On Kawara’s date paintings. Each page is a marker of time. Gonzalez-Torres invites us to take a sheet. When a visitor takes a sheet, the stack slowly diminishes, so that the artwork disperses, changes and disappears. It's like the action of painting, constantly re-interpreting what has come before. We each carry a piece of this artwork with us, and the artwork shifts and morphs. It is a way of making a painting that breathes!