“Untitled” (L.A.)

Installations of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, “Untitled” (L.A.)

September 2022 through December 2023

“Untitled” (L.A.) was first installed in the Smart Museum of Art exhibition Monochrome Multitudes (September 22, 2022–January 8, 2023) and in the Media Arts, Data, and Design Center (MADD) on the first floor of the Crerar Library. The artwork will be installed in additional locations across the University of Chicago campus from January to December 2023.

Please check back later for locations and additional information.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres

American, 1957–1996

“Untitled” (L.A.)

1991

Green candies in clear wrappers, endless supply
Overall dimensions vary with installation
Original dimensions: approx. 192 x 14 x 1 1⁄2 inches
Original weight: 50 lbs.

Jointly owned by Art Bridges and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

You can have something green if you want; the candies are for taking. But would you really call this sculpture “green?” Just as a bed of wrapped, round candies is only apparently flat, other of “Untitled” (L.A.)’s properties fill our actual experience of “green,” here and now, with change and difference. Against uniformity Gonzalez-Torres deploys a profusion of textures: a sparkling upper surface, broad, wavering outline, and surprisingly brilliant color.

Here, “green” is used and lived, not simply conceived. The artist doesn’t present green directly to the eye: crinkled clear plastic and the underlying floor or plinth both intervene, coloring the color with projected and reflected light. Get down low and observe the packages’ wildly varied footing, the sheer amount of space within the form. Get up again and you will immediately perceive the countless facets, literal and imaginary, those real pathways contribute to the thing seen. As though nothing here is one thing—including the part we’re invited to play. 

Written by Darby English, Carl Darling Buck Professor Department of Art History