Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Untitled (Perfect Lovers)
Self-published, 1987 - 1990
(34.3 x 68.6 x 3.2 cm)
Edition of 3 [+1 AP]
For all the talk of Marcel Duchamp’s influence, there are very few artists whose signature works are readymades. Tracey Emin’s disheveled bed? The kitschy shelf collections of Haim Steinbach? Jeff Koons’ basket balls and vacuum cleaners?1
But the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres often involved unaltered found materials, and when they didn’t, rarely showed any trace of the artist’s hand. Piles of candies, a string of lightbulbs and two cheap wall clocks are the works that come to mind when considering his brief but highly influential practice.
The two store-bought clocks that constitute Untitled (Perfect Lovers) are to be hung above head height, touching, and should be synchronized at the time of their installation, according to the artist’s instructions. Because of the inconsistency of the batteries that power them, they would eventually fall asynchronous, if only by a few seconds. The decision as to whether or not to reset them fell to the curators.
Positioned side-by-side, they form a kind of infinity symbol, a connection the artist made overt in other works (see below). Together with the parenthetical title, this infinity becomes a form of enduring love.
Indeed, the work is deeply romantic upon first reading (and always a favorite of students - one of mine had the graphic tattooed on her arm), but becomes more complicated upon deeper reflection.
While the artist was reluctant to allow personal biography into the work, he did concede that Perfect Lovers could be viewed as a portrait of himself and his lover, Calgarian Ross Laycock.2
Laycock’s death from AIDS in 1991 - five years prior to Gonzalez-Torres’ death from the same, makes the work resonate even more powerfully. But given that the work was produced at the height of the AIDS crisis (and the dismal response from the Reagan government) it could be viewed as a work about queer love in general.3
"Two clocks side by side,” the artist said, "are much more threatening to the powers that be than an image of two guys sucking each other’s dicks, because they cannot use me as a rallying point in their battle to erase meaning. It is going to be very difficult for members of Congress to tell their constituents that money is being expended for the promotion of homosexual art when all they have to show are two plugs side by side or two mirrors side by side."
Gonzalez-Torres also spoke about the work strictly in terms of a fear or time:
"Time is something that scares me. . . or used to. This piece I made with the two clocks was the scariest thing I have ever done. I wanted to face it. I wanted those two clocks right in front of me, ticking.”
But in a 1988 typed work called Lovers (above) he writes “Don’t be afraid of the clocks, they are our time, the time has been so generous to us. We imprinted time with the sweet taste of victory. We conquered fate by meeting at a certain TIME in a certain space.4 We are a product of the time, therefore we give back credit where it is due: time. We are synchronized, now forever. I love you.”
The double or repeated image brings to mind a long list of works in contemporary art, from Robert Rauschenberg’s 1957 work Factum to Candice Breitz’ videos of the same name, using twin siblings. And - mostly unrelated - Brian Eno in the documentary Imaginary Landscapes, describing the collaboration of musicians playing the same melody. He seems to stumble into the metaphor, and there’s no record of him repeating it anywhere else, so it may have just occurred to him in the moment:
"If you saw a Jackson Pollock painting and right next to it you saw another one that was identical, it would be very shocking, wouldn’t it? To see another identical version. Because whereas the first one was done like that [gesticulates wildly with his arm], the second one would have to be done with a one-hair brush. So there’s a dichotomy between the freedom [of the first] and the meticulousness of the perfect copy of it. It would be very hard to make a perfect copy of a Jackson Pollock. But if you saw either one of them on their own, you would only see the freedom of it. It’s seeing the two of them together that tells you that there’s also a, ah, conspiracy. That’s the only the word I can use.”5
The notion of duplication is strengthened by the countless cover versions of the work, one as recent as last week. “Paraconceptual” artist and designer Tobias Wong6 perfected Perfect Lovers by recreating the piece using clocks synchronized to the U.S. atomic clock, which tells time accurate to one second every million years.
With their now iconic status, it’s natural to forget that Perfect Lovers was typically presented in peripheral spaces, like the gallery’s back office, or behind the reception desk. It’s also easy to forget the work is an edition. And - until Matthew Higgs’ Instagram post yesterday - I had no idea that it was once offered for sale for as little as three-hundred and fifty dollars (a good reminder that editioned work can be an excellent investment).
1. Three Ball Total Equilibrium Tank and The New were quickly overtaken in Koons’ oeuvre by more traditional sculptural. An online search of ‘Jeff Koons’ requires scrolling down pages and pages past balloon dogs and rabbits, flower dogs and Michael Jackson and Bubbles before the floating basket balls and vacuum cleaners in perspex appear.
2. Read Greg Allen’s tribute to Laycock, here: https://greg.org/archive/2009/11/30/on-remembering-ross-laycock.html
3. The identical nature of the clocks support this reading.
4. What could be more romantic than the idea that our love is not born of fate, but that it conquers fate, beating the odds of two like-minded people ever coming together at the right time and place?
6. Born in Vancouver in 1974, Tobi Wong took his own life in New York City, in 2010.
"In October 1988 Felix Gonzalez-Torres first showed his iconic masterpiece ‘Perfect Lovers’ (the best contemporary artwork?) at White Columns in a three-artist exhibition entitled ‘Real World’ (with Lorna Simpson and Jon Tower.) On this occasion the work was dated “1984, 1987” and priced at $350.00 in an edition of three. (None sold!) The work was hung on the wall above the gallery’s desk. The subsequent version of this work, now titled “Untitled” (Perfect Lovers) and dated 1987-1990, was shown at Jay Gorney’s gallery in 1990 in an edition of three plus one AP. Three examples from this edition are now in the collections of @dallasmuseumart @glenstonemuseum and @thewadsworth (the fourth example is in a private collection.) A subsequent unique version dated 1991 (with white rimmed clocks and the option to paint the wall pale blue) is in MoMA’s collection [below, top]. The Wikipedia entry for ‘Perfect Lovers’ makes no mention of the earlier manifestation of this work shown at White Columns in October 1988. The gallery was located at 325 Spring Street at the time. Bill Arning was the director.”
- Matthew Higgs
