As adult nationals in Salt Lake draw to a close, I recall one of my favorite moments from past ANs. When I competed in Dallas in 2006, I researched the Dallas MOMA for a magazine article. While wandering the contemporary art section, I stumbled upon Untitled - Perfect Lovers, by Felix Gonzalez-Torres and was overcome with emotion. I couldn't believe two industrial-looking clocks would affect me in this way.
The two clocks were set approximately 3-5 minutes apart. The piece, like most of his art, was dedicated to his lover Ross, who was dying of AIDS. I found this on the piece:
The clocks sometimes are shown with a written letter to the artist’s lover, Ross, in 1988: “Don’t be afraid of the clocks, they are our times, time has been so generous to us. We imprinted time with the sweet taste of victory. We conquered fate by meeting at a certain time, therefore we give back credit where it is due: time. We are synchronized, now and forever. I love you.”
This from the Dallas MOMA:
These two identical, adjacent, battery-operated clocks were initially set to the same time, but, with time, they will inevitably fall out of sync... By assigning these redundant objects the title "Untitled" (Perfect Lovers), the artist transformed these public, neutral devices used for the measurement of time into personal and poetic meditations on human relationships, mortality, and time's inevitable flow. Of the light-blue background, Gonzalez-Torres said, "For me if a beautiful memory could have a color that color would be light blue."
What touched me about the pieces was the clock as a metaphor for real lovers. While we want to spend our lifetime together, the reality is one of us dies before the other. To me, the second hand represents our lives in sync; the minute hand, 3-5 minutes off, represents the loneliness between losing our life partner and our own untimely passing; and the hour hand life itself.
I hope to explore more of Gonzalez-Torres' work in person, in the future. Internet searches of his work and images have exposed me to a minimalist style that is marked with a graceful touch of elegance and melancholy.
1 comment:
This was a really beautiful entry, thanks for sharing.
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