Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ portraits are, by design, a conflation of the public and private, the world historic and the individual, the news and the intimate. And the artist encouraged his subjects to add and edit important events, people, and dates, authorizing them to decide what version of a portrait should be used whenever it is exhibited.
So I am pretty sure that when “Untitled” (Portrait of the Rosenbergs), 1994, was installed at Paula Cooper Gallery this summer, the text was provided by its subjects, OG Tribeca collectors Colombe Nicholas and Leonard Rosenberg. The work appears in Tabula Rasa, a fascinating-looking group show tracing study, influence, and relationships across a network of artists around Sarah Charlesworth.
And I guess one way to interpret the inclusion of “Covid arrives 2021” is as the date it finally made its way into the Rosenbergs’ pod? Did they somehow miss the entirety of Covid in 2020, when it was very much a thing? Did the date baked right into the name, COVID-19, not factor in? Did they perhaps mean “Vaccine arrives 2021”?
The very nature of Felix’s portraits, and also the nature of human history as an accumulation of lived individual experience and interaction, and also the ultimate impossibility of knowing someone else’s subjective experience, and also the inevitable failure of art, no matter how powerful, to perfectly capture and transmit the essence of that subjectivity, makes me reluctant to call the factcheckers. If or until I hear back from them or the gallery with more info, for the Rosenbergs, at least, Covid arrived in 2021.
Meanwhile, in his 2023 show of Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ work, David Zwirner exhibited another portrait, “Untitled” (Portrait of the Magoons), 1993, but in three versions. Artists Coco Fusco and Glenn Ligon created their own versions, and collector/subject Nancy Magoon provided her own version. [cf. this YouTube video of them speaking with Helen Molesworth about the portrait(s).]
In her version Magoon, whose husband and co-subject Robert passed away in 2018, included “Covid lonely 2020.” Which, taken together with “Bedazzled 2019, 2021, 2022,” might mean the pandemic canceled Ms. Magoon’s annual screening of the Elizabeth Hurley/Brendan Fraser classic. Such is the nature of a Felix portrait, of course, that we may never know.
Tabula Rasa is on view at Paula Cooper Gallery until 26 July 2024 [paulacoopergallery]