EXHIBITIONS
BRADBURY ART MUSEUM
Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Untitled (LA)
August 1, 2026 – December 15, 2026
Jointly owned by Art Bridges and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Exhibition Overview
As one of Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s powerful candy-spill works, "Untitled" (L.A.) finds beauty in the everyday by transforming a bounty of green, cellophane-wrapped candies into a dazzling arrangement of color, form, and texture. Viewers are encouraged to take and taste the candy, activating the work in a way that suggests a wide range of profound meanings. The participation of each viewer creates a moment of engagement that is sensory and personal. The intimate nature and fluctuating structure of Gonzalez-Torres’s candy works are often interpreted as being related to tragedy in the artist’s private life.
"Untitled" (L.A.) was created in 1991, the same year that Gonzalez-Torres’s beloved partner Ross Laycock lost his life due to an AIDS-related illness. The gradual depletion and replenishment of Gonzales-Torres’s candy-spills has been seen as metaphoric, seeming to represent the deterioration of a human body ravaged by illness. At the same time, it can also be seen as a type of immortality generated through ritual remembrance and continual recreation. However, Gonzalez-Torres avoided assigning explicit interpretations to his candy works, preferring them to remain available for all to experience in a personal way.
Text is courtesy of the Art Bridges.
“Untitled” (L.A.) will be presented simultaneously at the Windgate Hall of Art and Innovation and the Bradbury Art Museum August 1, 2026 – December 15, 2026
This joint presentation aims to strengthen relationships between artists, the museum, and our community. The Bradbury Art Museum seeks to bridge the often-unseen journey from the artist's studio, where ideas emerge through experimentation, uncertainty, and creative risk, to the museum gallery, where artworks hang pristine and thoughtfully interpreted. We invite visitors to become active participants in this process. By taking a piece of candy, each visitor completes the work through an act of generosity, creating a lasting connection among artists, museum professionals, students, and the public. Together, we celebrate the idea that art must be shared, experienced, and continually renewed through collective participation.
We are currently developing a series of educational programs that will allow us to examine, think, and discuss this seminal work. Please check back for updates.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Felix Gonzalez-Torres was one of the most significant American artists to emerge in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Living and working in New York City between 1979 and 1995, he studied photography at the Pratt Institute, received an MFA from the International Center for Photography and New York University, and twice participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program. His artwork has been shown internationally in solo and group exhibitions, including at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Tate London, all of which have significant holdings of Gonzalez-Torres’s work. Distinct from what he considered to be his own practice, the artist also was part of Group Material (1987 to 1991), a New York-based art collective whose members worked collaboratively to initiate community education and cultural activism. Gonzalez-Torres died in 1996 from AIDS-related complications.
Text is courtesy of Boise Art Museum
ABOUT Untitled (LA)
Gonzalez-Torres addressed universal themes such as loss, impermanence, love, illness, rejuvenation, and hope in his interactive artworks. Focusing on the simplicity of a single object arranged in large quantities, the artist invited viewers to participate in establishing meaning in the works of art. This intellectual and physical inclusion of the audience defied conventional notions of art’s preciousness, as visitors were asked to touch, even consume the work of art.
“Untitled” (LA) was created by Gonzalez-Torres as a response to his personal grief over his partner’s death from AIDS. The artist stated, “I never stopped loving Ross. Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean I stopped loving him. I make work because I still have some hope.” Although the artist created this installation during the height of the AIDS epidemic, his artworks continue to resonate with us today as we all struggle to cope with our acute sense of loss for those no longer present, our disconnection to others and the world, and our lives forever altered by the current pandemic. The installation and its interactivity is also a celebration of generosity and love as Gonzalez-Torres offered a universal and enduring message of hope, “We need our own space to think and digest what we see. And we also have to trust the viewer and trust the power of the object. And the power is in simple things. I like the kind of clarity that that brings to thought. It keeps thought from being opaque.”
Text is courtesy of Boise Art Museum
Image courtesy of Smarthistory.