Tag: queer artists

“Untitled” (Portrait of the Cincinnati Art Museum), 1994, Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Description
From the Certificate of Authenticity/Ownership:
A portrait consisting of words and numbers (events and their dates)… Ideal installation:  this text is to be painted directly on a wall(s) just below the point where the wall meets the ceiling, in metallic silver paint on a background color to the owner’s liking, in Trump Medieval Bold Italic typeface.  If necessary, the size of the text may be altered to fit the available wall space each time this work is re-installed.
The current installation of the work in the front lobby has the list of events and dates arranged in two rows of text that completely circle the lobby in a band just below the ceiling and just above a decorative molding near the top of the walls.
Although the certificate of ownership stipulates that dates can be added and removed as the museum sees fit, the current installation matches the original list faxed by the artist to the museum during the commissioning process.  That list is as follows:

Though this list presents the possibility of a “correct order” in which the dates should be read, the installation forms a continuous circle with no clear beginning point and no clear end.  As the dates are not in chronological order (or, indeed, any apparent order), the assumption is that the viewer may begin reading at any point.