b. 1957, Guáimaro, Cuba; d. 1996, Miami, Florida

Felix Gonzalez-Torres was born in Guáimaro, Cuba, on November 26, 1957. He earned a B.F.A. in photography from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, in 1983. Printed Matter in New York hosted his first solo exhibition the following year. After obtaining an M.F.A. from the International Center of Photography and New York University in 1987, he worked as an adjunct art instructor at New York University until 1989. Throughout his career, Gonzalez-Torres's involvement in social and political causes as a gay man fueled an interest in the overlaps 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 is indebted 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 [more] and Conceptualism to address themes like love and loss, sickness and rejuvenation, gender and sexuality, Gonzalez-Torres asked viewers to participate in establishing meaning in his works.

In his "dateline" pieces, begun in 1987, Gonzalez-Torres assembled lists of various dates in nonchronological order interspersed with the names of social and political figures and references to cultural artifacts or world events, many of them related to the artist and gay politics. Printed in white type on black sheets of paper, these lists of seeming non sequiturs prompted viewers to consider the relationships and gaps between the diverse references as well the construction of individual and collective identities and memories. Gonzalez-Torres also produced dateline "portraits," consisting of similar lists of dates and events related to the subject�s life. In Untitled (Portrait of Jennifer Flay) (1992), for example, �A New Dress 1971� lies next to "Vote for Women, NZ 1893."

Gonzalez-Torres invited physical as well as intellectual engagement from viewers. His sculptures of wrapped candies spilled in corners (1990) or spread on floors, like carpets (1991), defy the convention of art's preciousness, as viewers are asked to touch and consume the work. Beginning in 1989, he fashioned sculptures of neat stacks of paper, encouraging viewers to take sheets. The impermanence of these works, which slowly disappear over time, symbolizes the fragility of life. While in appearance they echo the work of Donald Judd and Tony Smith, these playful pieces also belie the Minimalist tenet of aesthetic autonomy: viewers complete the works by depleting them.

In 1991, Gonzalez-Torres began producing sculptures consisting of strands of inexpensive plastic beads strung on metal rods, like curtains in a disco. Titles such as Untitled (Chemo) (1991) and Untitled (Blood) (1992) undercut their festive associations, calling to mind illness and disease. In 1992, he commenced a series of strands of low-watt white lightbulbs, which he strung along walls or vertically, from ceilings. Alluding to purity, spirituality, and enlightenment, these delicate and flaccid garlands, which willfully surrender to the forces of gravity, are also a campy commentary on the phallic underpinnings of numerous Minimalist creations, particularly Dan Flavin's rigid light sculptures. Also in 1992, Untitled (1991), a sensual black-and-white photograph of Gonzalez-Torres's empty, unmade bed with traces of two absent bodies, was installed on twenty-four billboards throughout New York. This enigmatic image was both a celebration of coupling and a memorial to the artist's lover, who had recently died of AIDS. Its installation as a billboard addressed the control of information and the public scrutiny of private behavior.

Gonzalez-Torres received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1989 and 1993. Comprehensive retrospective exhibitions of his work have been organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (1994), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1995), Sprengel Museum Hannover (1997), and Banco de la República, Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango in Bogotá (2000). He died in Miami, Florida, on January 9, 1996.