lovers

Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Untitled (Perfect Lovers). 1991.

These two identical, adjacent, battery-operated clocks were initially set to the same time, but, with time, they will inevitably fall out of sync. Gonzalez-Torres created this work shortly after his partner, Ross Laycock, was diagnosed with AIDS. 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.'

© 2010 The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation.

this hour of clear coolness

Come let us pity those who are better off than we are.  
Come, my friend, and remember  
                that the rich have butlers and no friends,  
And we have friends and no butlers.  
Come let us pity the married and the unmarried.

Dawn enters with little feet  
                like a gilded Pavlova,  
And I am near my desire.  
Nor has life in it aught better  
Than this hour of clear coolness,
                the hour of waking together.

Ezra Pound, 'The Garret'

Photo: Untitled (1991) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres. As installed for The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 24 locations throughout New York City. © The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation.

Brought to mind thanks to this.

a new landscape, a possible horizon, a place of rest and absolute beauty

Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled” (Golden), 1995. Plastic beads and metal rod.

Roni Horn’s Gold Field (1980–82), two pounds of pure gold compressed into a luminous rectangular mat.

Backstory:

In 1990 during Horn’s solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Gonzalez-Torres encountered her sculpture Forms from the Gold Field (1980–82), two pounds of pure gold compressed into a luminous rectangular mat. Set directly on the floor in an otherwise empty gallery, the work threatens to dissolve into dazzling immateriality, the sense of pure surface that its delicacy invokes. Impressed by its radical simplicity and emotive capabilities, Gonzalez-Torres shared his memory of the work with Horn when they met in 1993. A few days later, she sent him a square of gold foil as a symbol of their newfound friendship and shared sensibilities. He was so inspired by her gesture and the expansiveness of her subtle work that he fashioned his own “gold field” in her honor ...

 So far, this is my favorite thing I have seen in New York.

See also:

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Placebo-Landscape-for Roni). Candies, individually wrapped in gold cellophane, endless supply. Overall dimensions vary with installation. Ideal weight: 1,200 lbs.

Roni Horn. Paired Gold Mats, for Ross and Felix, 1994–5. Two pure gold mats, .002 x 152.4 x 124.5 cm each.

Post title excerpted from '1990: L.A., The Gold Field' by Felix Gonzalez-Torres in Earths Grow Thick, Wexner Center for the Arts Roni Horn exhibition catalogue, 1996.