A Felix Gonzalez-Torres exhibition at the Smithsonian-run National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., has revived controversy over how one famed artwork is presented, with many alleging that the show strips the piece of any reference to the artist’s lover, who died of AIDS-related causes.
The piece in question, “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), from 1991, previously touched off a scandal in 2022 when it was exhibited by the Art Institute of Chicago, its owner. After a similar outcry, that museum altered its wall text for the work.
Earlier in the week, scholar Ignacio Darnaude published on op-ed with Out in which he alleged that the National Portrait Gallery was guilty of “queer erasure” because the wall text for that piece does not mention Ross Laycock, Gonzalez-Torres’s partner. In a statement sent to ARTnews on Wednesday, the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation rebutted Darnaude’s essay at length, saying that the controversy that resulted from the Out article had been the result of “misinformation.”
“While Gonzalez-Torres’s intention for his work was to encourage everyone to embrace their rights and responsibilities to engage, experience, and have opinions, and the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation encourages robust discourse, what we do not condone is the spread of misinformation,” the foundation said in a statement. “We appreciate journalists – and a wide range of people who have seen this exhibition – who have pointed out that there is no ‘erasure’ in this exhibition. Rather, quite the opposite.”
The foundation’s statement continued, “This exhibition’s rigorous curators, Josh Franco and Charlotte Ickes, have done an extraordinary amount of research and have not only made a point of incorporating significant queer content throughout this exhibition (including direct references to Gonzalez-Torres’s queer identity, his partner Ross Laycock, and both of their deaths from complications from AIDS), but have provided a generous forum for a vast and diverse audience to engage with this content, other political content, and Gonzalez-Torres’s work. It is particularly profound and brave that this exhibition in Washington, D.C. comes at a time when diversity efforts are being challenged throughout the federal government.”
The title of “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) refers to Ross Laycock, Gonzalez-Torres’s lover, but the work is not a conventional portrait. Per the work’s certificate, the piece is to be composed of wrapped candies that are available in “endless supply,” since these sweets can be taken away by viewers and eaten, then replenished later on. Because those instructions do not dictate how it is to be presented, the candies of “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) have been shown variously as a stack and in rows on the floor. (The title for the work has never changed in any context, however, the foundation said.)
Much attention has been paid to the “ideal weight” of the piece: 175 pounds. The figure has commonly been seen as a reference to Laycock’s weight, and while that interpretation appeared in writings published by scholars and critics during Gonzalez-Torres’s lifetime, other readings also proliferated. Some have also said the “ideal weight” could also refer to the weight of the average adult male. There is even a 1997 essay in which Andrea Rosen, his dealer, states that the figure could refer to how much Gonzalez-Torres himself weighed. “If I do a portrait of someone, I use their weight,” Gonzalez-Torres once said.
The National Portrait Gallery’s wall text for the piece notes the “ideal weight,” but it is not accompanied by an extended caption. A spokesperson for the museum told ARTnews that the curators, Josh T. Franco and Charlotte Ickes, “did not feel it was appropriate to change the medium line of the work.”
“The focus of the exhibition is to highlight Felix’s revolutionary work in portraiture,” the museum said in a statement. “Across the exhibition and its various locations, we have put his artworks in conversation with portraits from the museum’s collection—including portraits of queer figures—to provide further context around the artist’s practice. In the gallery in which “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) is installed, there is a wall label that includes: ‘Gonzalez-Torres cared for his partner Ross Laycock, named in the candy work’s title, who died from HIV/AIDS in 1991’.”
Gonzalez-Torres sometimes spoke about his work in conflicting ways, making it tough to ascribe a singular meaning to his works. “Not only is there the possibility of new interpretation of Felix’ work over time,” Rosen writes in her 1997 essay, “there is the possibility of a different visual resonance.” But this week, allegations flew as many conjectured that his foundation, which is run by Rosen, had attempted to clamp down on how “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) was to be analyzed by the general public.
In an essay for Out, Darnaude claimed that the National Portrait Gallery exhibition, co-organized with the Archives of American Art, had been scrubbed of textual references to Laycock. “It’s cruel and disingenuous for the artist’s estate to use acrobatic excuses and allude that the meaning of “Portrait of Ross in L.A.,” created the year Ross died, should be left to the viewer’s interpretation, ignoring the elephant in the room, that it is an AIDS memorial,” Darnaude wrote.
His accusations were reiterated by others on social media. Artist Carl George, a friend of Gonzalez-Torres and Laycock, wrote on Instagram that the wall text was left vague “to ‘broaden interpretation of the work’, as they say… Not true. Bullshit. It broadens market appeal and price for Felix’s work by erasing Ross, gay, Latino, AIDS, HIV, ACT UP, AIDS Action NOW.” His Instagram was reposted by the AIDS Memorial, an account with 298,000 followers.
The AIDS Memorial deleted its posts on both Instagram and Facebook, but George’s Instagram post, which also mentioned David Zwirner, the gallery that represents Gonzalez-Torres’s foundation, is still live. A representative for David Zwirner did not respond to request for comment.
Some critics have raised points that conflict with Darnaude’s essay. Greg Allen noted on his blog that other texts in the National Portrait Gallery show mention AIDS and Laycock by name, and that certain pieces are even given extended didactics to that effect. “Felix’s connection to Ross is not erased,” Allen writes.
