THE BASS PRESENTS “FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES: WHAT REMAINS”, A CELEBRATION OF THE ARTIST'S LIFE AND LEGACY

On view at The Bass Museum, What Remains considers González-Torres’ artistic and personal legacy on artist communities in Miami, the Caribbean and Latin America. Positioning his work, “Untitled” (L.A.), 1991, in dialogue with five artists from the region, What Remains comprises an intimate reflection on his impact of contemporary artmaking. Works on view address universal subject-matter such as life, death, love and loss, as well as González-Torres’ material and methodological vocabulary. Participating artists include Jim Hodges, Michael Linares, Teresa Margolles, Maria Martínez-Cañas, César Trasobares, and Frances Trombly.

PART #1 | 4 - 4:55 PM

Introduction by Silvia Karman Cubiñá, Executive Director & Chief Curator of The Bass

FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES' VIRAL AESTHETICS

A Talk by Dr. Robert Hobbs, Art Historian. By avoiding the traps of identity politics, Felix Gonzalez-Torres found ways to reshape established vanguard art. Dr. Robert Hobbs will analyze the artist’s major contributions through the lens of the word “virus”, which was often used by Gonzalez-Torres to describe the way his art functioned.

PART #2 | 5 - 5:55 PM

FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES: PUERTO RICO

Moderated by Mario González, Director of the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Family Archive

Panelists: Elvis Fuentes, Independent Curator; María Martínez-Cañas, Artist; Lilliana Ramos Collado, Ph.D. Full Professor at the University of Puerto Rico School of Architecture. Also, invited panel members, who have shared personal experiences with Felix Gonzalez-Torres as well as studied his extensive body of work, will discuss the people and places in Puerto Rico which framed Felix Gonzalez-Torres' life and career.

PART #3 | 6 - 7 PM

THE EVER-PRESENT ROLE OF THE EXHIBITOR IN FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES' WORK

Introduction by Melissa Wallen, Director of the de la Cruz Collection

Moderated by Andrew Kachel, Director & Felix Gonzalez-Torres Liaison at Andrea Rosen Gallery

Panelists:; Rosa de la Cruz, Collector and Founder of the de la Cruz Collection; Elena Filipovic, Director and Curator of Kunsthalle Basel; Andrea Rosen, President of The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation and Andrea Rosen Gallery

A significant aspect of Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s work is longevity; its life is contingent upon the decisions individuals make when exhibiting the works. In this conversation, panel members will speak to these decisions and the potential influence on the works and their meaning as they shift and evolve over time.

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Felix Gonzalez-Torres was born in Guáimaro, Cuba, in 1957. Throughout his career, Gonzalez-Torres’s involvement in social and political causes as an openly gay man fueled his interest in the overlap of private and public life. From 1987 to 1991, he was part of Group Material, a New York-based art collective whose members worked collaboratively to initiate community education and cultural activism. His aesthetic project was, according to some scholars, related to Bertolt Brecht’s theory of epic theater, in which creative expression transforms the spectator from an inert receiver to an active, reflective observer and motivates social action. Employing simple, everyday materials (stacks of paper, puzzles, candy, strings of lights, beads) and a reduced aesthetic vocabulary reminiscent of both Minimalism and Conceptual art to address themes such as love and loss, sickness and rejuvenation, gender and sexuality, Gonzalez-Torres asked viewers to participate in establishing meaning in his works.