Felix Gonzalez-Torres
"Untitled" (Fortune Cookie Corner), 1990
Fortune cookies, endless supply
Overall dimensions vary with installation
Original installation: approximately 10,000 fortune cookies

Curated by Andrea Rosen

May 25 - July 5, 2020

CORE TENETS of "Untitled" (Fortune Cookie Corner), 1990 [and all Gonzalez-Torres candy works]:

The work can exist in more than one place at a time, as its uniqueness is defined by ownership.

An intention of the work is that it can be manifested with ease.

When the work is manifest, individuals must be permitted to choose to take pieces from the work.

The owner (or authorized borrower) has the right to determine if and how the work is regenerated during the course of an exhibition/installation.

The owner (or authorized borrower) has the right to interpret/choose the mode, configuration, and placement of installation for each manifestation.

The work exists even if it is not manifest.

A manifestation of the work is only the work if it is installed by the owner or in the context of an authorized loan.

An authorized manifestation of the work is the work, and should only be referred to as the work.

AS GONZALEZ-TORRES WAS INTERESTED IN HIS WORK PROVIDING AN OPPORTUNITY FOR QUESTIONING, SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:

As this exhibition makes us think about how we almost exclusively conceive of exhibitions as happening in what we refer to as public spaces, it also invokes questioning of the arbitrary separations we create between the broader notions of public and private (a central topic in Gonzalez-Torres’s work). In what ways do we use these conceptual separations to limit our individual senses of responsibility? How has this historic moment shifted our perceptions of public and private space? How does this lead us to think about ideas of accessibility?

Anyone could source and place a quantity of fortune cookies in a pile, but when does such an installation become a work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres? How does Gonzalez-Torres's work help us think about value systems? How does this work engage, expand, or subvert distinctions between owner, audience, exhibitor, and participant?

One of the core tenets of this work is that it exists even when it is not manifest. What does this mean to us as humans? As most of us are currently isolated, how does this aspect of the work – that it can exist without being physically present – make us think about how even though we may be out of sight, our actions and intentions still have effect?

In light of conversations around the environment and sustainability, how does Gonzalez-Torres’s work help us consider how art may evolve to be in line with our future?

Many of Gonzalez-Torres’s works, including candy works and paper stacks, address the capacity for immortality through regeneration, heightened by the experience of loss and depletion within the works. As you experience the work in your “place” and have the opportunity to regenerate the work halfway through the exhibition (especially in this historic moment in time), how might the work help you reflect on the relationship we have to out and out loss, and the intertwined relationship between loss and regeneration and/or renewal?

Because this current pandemic is affecting nearly everyone globally, how does this exhibition, which is purposefully situated in this time, address the fact that feelings of compassion and empathy are often linked to personal impact and experience? And how does this exhibition, that hopefully addresses the unseen relationships among all the “places” in the total “site,” potentially change our relationship to empathy and connection? And how does it make us think about our reactions to other crises, both current and past?

Gonzalez-Torres was very specific about what was included in a work’s caption, yet he was also interested in the potential for overt inconsistencies between the purposeful static nature of a caption and the purposeful malleability within each manifestation of many of his works (such as: the shape, configuration, size, materials used...). How do we address our own attachments to ideas like “original” or “ideal?”

“Untitled” (Fortune Cookie Corner) will look and evolve differently within the individual “places” of the exhibition, while these “places” remain part of one total “site” of the exhibition. Did the experience provide a sense of continuity or connection with others? Did you feel like you were part of a whole? Or did it emphasize your sense of isolation?

There are many works by Gonzalez-Torres that could have been chosen for this exhibition, to similar effect. How does this work, and its implicit connections to chance, hope, the unknown, resonate in this moment?