"Untitled" (March 5th) #2

1991

"Untitled" (March 5th) #2, 1991. Felix Gonzalez-Torres (American, 1957–1996). Light bulbs, porcelain light sockets, and extension cords; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Scott Mueller Collection 3.2017 © The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation Cuban-born artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s sculptural installations are imbued with details of his life. On March 5, 1991, he lost his partner Ross Laycock to an AIDS-related death. In this work, Gonzales-Torres conjures a couple through a pair of gradually extinguishing lightbulbs, an artwork that quietly commemorates his partner’s passing and makes a larger reference to the AIDS epidemic. Gonzalez-Torres’s own premature death due to AIDS five years later adds an additional narrative dimension to the work: viewers bear witness to both artist and partners’ lives and losses through the two nestling bulbs hanging from entwined cords.