In retrospect maybe it was obvious that the mindblowing work of an artist who challenged so many expectations of what art could be ends up so invested in defining what it’s not.
In the beginning was the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Catalogue Raisonné, with its work works, and its two catalogue appendices: Additional Material and Registered Non-Works. These included some variations of works; some works that were shown and later declared non-works; non-works that were originally sold or given as works; and works he gave to friends that turned out to be non-works.
Then there were the photographs and snapshots given to friends, a warm sea of images Felix and his friends soaked in, and from which he drew so many of the images he used for puzzles, billboards, and other works.
There was the book, or book projects, which the artist approached as a work as he made and selected images, his collaborators reported, but which nonetheless do not make the CR.
There were the unrealized works, some of which were realized posthumously.
Then there were the exhibition copies, which are not stacks or candy spills, or billboards, non-persistent, certificate- and ownership-based works whose temporary realizations are called manifestations. Exhibition copies are copies outside an edition, of puzzles, for starters, which turned up among the complete set of puzzles first presented for sale at Basel, and then shown at the National Portrait Gallery.
Speaking of which, there were also the exhibition copies of snapshots, which were not works to begin with, and which were a surprise, frankly. But if the Smithsonian wanted to borrow the light string Christmas cards Felix sent me, I’d look for a workaround, too.
To all this is [now?] [also?] added Archival Material. So far, one example has come to public/market attention, and if it were any other artist, it’d be tempting to call it a study or a drawing. In March 2024 Bill Georgis sold the collection he and longtime Whitney curator Richard D. Marshall had accumulated over their many years together. It included numerous works artists made or gave Marshall to be used for the cover of The Paris Review, a side hustle Marshall had from 1975 until around 1990.
Though the cover Felix designed was for the Fall 1991 issue. As the signed note indicates, Felix had an idea for a portfolio for the magazine, but was content with just the cover—clocks on the front, dolphins on the back. The color sample is from Duron paint [not Pantone], and based on vintage issues I’ve seen online, the ink faded pretty dramatically.
It seems worth noting that though the drawing is signed, Sotheby’s does not attribute it to Felix, just describing it as “Archival Material associated with Felix” &c. &c. Two objects Christopher Wool made for Marshall for the cover of the 1989 Whitney Biennial are also labeled as “archival material,” but Sotheby’s at least lists Wool as their maker.
All three archival material lots sold, and both the Felix and the best Wool sold for more than 4x their estimates. Whether it complicates ownership as a defining feature of Felix’s works, the market seems ready to handle these objects.
How they enter into the larger discussion of the artist’s work and what they reveal about his practice remain unclear. Finding out how audiences might respond to Archival Material would probably involve them turning up more or less at random, and somewhere besides an estate auction.
[Mail Call Update] I knew that Felix had not contributed any content for the interior of The Paris Review. I did not realize an illustration of a Donald Moffett work accompanied the table of contents. Glory, 1991, does not appear elsewhere online, though a similar bowling ball with a single, similarly sized hole, Untitled (You You You), 1990, is in the collection of the Walker Art Center, a 2015 gift of Eileen & Michael Cohen (the first owners of “Untitled” (Leaves of Grass).)
Felix’s works, meanwhile, are captioned as Untitled (Perfect Lovers), 1988, without the quote marks around “Untitled”, or the work’s more expanded date range (1987-90); and Untitled (Dolphin Halos), 1990. Besides being the only mention I can find describing the dolphin ring motif as a halo, this double dolphin halo [!] design corresponds to no other work, non-work, or published additional material. Perhaps there is a new category of lost works, or lost non-works, remaining to be explored?