While I was at Stanford, I made it a point to visit the Cantor Art Museum as often as I could. I was lucky to realise early on that this was a place I loved, and I needed to enjoy my time there before I graduated.
It was during one weekend visit that I came across Gonzalez-Torres’ installation – a triangular pile of candy – wrapped in translucent rainbow colors over the silver wrapper, huddled in the corner. I saw it first out of the corner of my eye and as I looked at the razor edged rainbow hues of Wayne Thiebaud instead, familiar with him and Georgia O’Keefe and the other more traditional artists, I saw someone pick up a candy piece from the pile before walking away, popping it in their mouth.
I know I was sceptical. Knowing what I know now, I can’t rid the installation of meaning, even in memory. But I know I thought. it was some kind of gimmick, until I went over to read the description.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres, “Untitled” (Placebo), 1991, candies in silver wrappers, endless supply. Ideal weight: 175 lb
The description went on to explain that Gonzalez-Torres’ partner had passed away due to AIDS-related complications. That his weight, a fact that became metric to watch during his struggle with the illness, was 175 lb when he was healthy. That the viewer is allowed to take a piece of candy, in fact, they’re encouraged. The act, in Gonzalez-Torres’ intention, was akin to receiving communion – a holy act. As christians remember Jesus and his sacrifice through communion, Gonzalez-Torres asks us to remember Ross Laycock. As each passing person takes a piece of candy, we see the depletion of the pile: akin to watching his love slowly deteriorate.
There is something to be said of the medium itself. I remember eating that candy and for a second, it’s a relief. Feeling the sugar melt on your tongue – it’s an instinct, a lifetime of association, to feel good. And that is what made me remember Gonzalez-Torres and his love.
It is sad. Obviously, it is sad. And yet while you let the candy dissolve in your mouth, you are reminded of joy. Of love – of a love so sweet and so beautiful, that was lost. And yet here is a reminder. Yes as the audience we see the pile of candy diminish, and it is that ache of watching a loved one waste away. And yet the installation is replenished. The body couldn’t remain 175 lb, but the love, it still fills that space. Every time it is refilled it is an exhalation, a return. A remembering of his health.
To love someone is to know you will lose them. To time, to distance, to change, to life – the cause doesn’t matter. What’s that famous quote? Someone has to leave first. It’s an old story. There’s no other version of the story.
Someone has to leave first. And yet we remember. We lose them a hundred times over in remembering the love – and a hundred times over we get them back too.
There are many articles I came across when researching the work that found this act of eating the candy – signifying the “decay” of Ross Laycock, “grotesque.” I understand what they mean, but somehow, that was never a word that crossed my mind while interacting with the piece. The word I thought of was far more simple – to me, it was sweet. You know the song ‘Sunday Candy’? The reverence we have for the ones we love – the way that they become almost holy? Love lingers, love dwells in awe. Love brings into focus what was before just mundane. Love makes holy that which is light and playful, like candy.
I’m thinking here of Joy, not pleasure – a distinction that Zadie Smith talks about so beautifully.
Eating the candy is pleasure – but in the context of this work, it is evoking Joy. Joy which brings with it the tinge of loss, which lingers on sadness.
It’s not just the candy. It’s the wrapping. The rainbow hues. But beyond the obvious reference, I do think it is about happiness. I do think, like the Pride flag which is a celebration in the face of hatred, these colors are about reclaiming something. Losing a love, and losing them to the AIDS pandemic which was ignored, villified, criminally mismanaged because of the population it was effecting – brings with it erasure. Erasure of the life he lived, of the love they shared, of the fear around the illness. Of the happiness they shared. Of the watchfulness of illness, the constant measuring to crawl back to health.
