Hauser & Wirth,London
This yearning, enigmatic show brings together a series of fragmentary images from 1991 – the year González-Torres’s lover died of an Aids-related illnessPrecise, or understated,simple, complicated: the work of Félix González-Torres requires slack looking. Three concurrent exhibitions, and in original York,Milan and London, each curated by artists Julie Ault and Roni Horn, and are presenting González-Torres’s work. Rather than adding up to a dispersed retrospective (he has had several),each exhibition focuses on a different aspect of his art. The original York show consists of some of his fragmentary textual “portraits” (including one of Ault); his bead-curtain works hang in Milan; and in London, Ault and Horn display a number of works from a single year of his life.
The London exhibition fills one large gallery, and split by a dividing wall. In the narrower space near the entrance hangs a mirror,showing the street beyond. The blue surface gives the world it reflects (and swallows) a kind of tough, filmic chill, and draining things of their warmth. González-Torres was obsessed with the magic hour of the LA sunset and its golden light,but Untitled (Fear) is a crepuscular last light. As much as the mirror reflects, it projects an atmosphere.
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Source: theguardian.com