Always to Return examines Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s work in relation to portraiture and accompanies a major exhibition of the same name at the National Portrait Gallery and the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
This expansive project focuses on Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s deep engagement with portraiture and the construction of identity, as well as how history is told and inherited. As one of the leading artists of the twentieth century, Gonzalez-Torres broadened the horizon of portraiture from a genre associated with static representations of individuals to one with the capacity to change, remain resonant, and encourage collaboration. With no formal beginning or end point, the exhibition and monograph unfold at the intersection of Gonzalez-Torres’s groundbreaking work, the context of two Smithsonian collections, and the historically significant setting of Washington, D.C.
Always to Return weaves together documentation of the exhibition with new scholarship by the exhibition’s curators, Josh T Franco and Charlotte Ickes, essays by Julie Ault, and Joshua Chambers-Letson, and archival texts that shape the conceptual foundation for the exhibition. This in-depth look at the artist’s relationship to portraiture and historiography provides a new way into the practice of one the most significant artists of our time.
The work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres can be found in numerous public collections worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Baltimore Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Cleveland Museum of Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville; Dallas Museum of Art; Glenstone Museum, Potomac; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington; Institute of Contemporary Art Miami; Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate Modern, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Always to Return is co-published with the National Portrait Gallery and the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957–1996) was one of the most significant artists in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In its reduced formal vocabulary, conceptual rigor, and evocative use of everyday materials, the artist’s work resonates with meaning that is at once specific and mutable, rigorous and generous, poetic and political. Born in Cuba, the artist studied and lived in the U.S., ultimately dying from AIDS-related causes in 1996.
Josh T Franco (b. 1985) is collector at large at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art. Prior to joining the Smithsonian, he was an artist-guide at Judd Foundation while completing his PhD in art history at Binghamton University, SUNY.
Charlotte Ickes (b. 1986) is the curator of time-based media art and special projects at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Prior to joining the Portrait Gallery, she was the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at MCA Chicago.
Julie Ault (b. 1957) is a New York-based artist, curator, and writer dedicated to activating and preserving overlooked cultural histories. She was a founding member of the artists’ collaborative Group Material (1979–1996) of which Felix Gonzalez-Torres was an active member between 1988 and 1991. Ault edited Felix Gonzalez-Torres (Steidl Dangin, 2006), the first comprehensive monograph on the artist’s work.
Joshua Chambers-Letson (b. 1980) is the Chair of Performance Studies and Professor of Performance Studies and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University. Completing a forthcoming book on queerness, grief, and love, he is also the author of After the Party: A Manifesto for Queer of Color and A Race So Different: Law and Performance in Asian America. With Tavia Nyong’o he is the editor of José Esteban Muñoz’s The Sense of Brown and of Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s China Trilogy: Three Parables of Global Capital with Christine Mok. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.
Teresita Fernández (b. 1968) is a New York–based artist whose work is characterized by an interest in conceptual wayfinding and a rethinking of landscape. She is a 2005 MacArthur Foundation Fellow and the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEA Artist’s Grant. Her works have been exhibited both nationally and internationally, at venues including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington; the Menil Collection, Houston; and Castello di Rivoli, Turin.
Félix González-Torres (1957–1996) was one of the most significant artists to emerge in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In its reduced formal vocabulary, conceptual rigor, and evocative use of everyday materials, the artist’s work resonates with meaning that is at once specific and mutable, rigorous and generous, poetic and political.
González-Torres was born in Guáimaro, Cuba and referred to himself as American. He began his art studies at the University of Puerto Rico before moving to New York City, where he attended the Whitney Independent Study Program, in 1981 and 1983. He received his BFA from Pratt Institute in 1983 and his MFA from the International Center of Photography and New York University in 1987. He lived and worked in New York City from 1979-1995. González-Torres died in Miami on January 9, 1996 from AIDS-related causes. The artist’s work has been shown around the world in galleries and museums, and is held in numerous public and private collcetions.
