Felix Gonzalez Torres, work on death, Untitled 1991

Yes, it’s that billboard, it’s a picture of crumpled pillows. The photo was taken by a Cuba-born American artist whose partner, Canadian Ross Laycock, had died a year earlier of complications from AIDS. So the work relates to a pandemic and is extremely topical in nature. Crumpled linen tells about bodies that do not exist, about closeness that will not return, about everyday life that has turned into memory.

There are few such subtle and eloquent works relating to death and loss of loved ones, especially premature loss. The simplicity of the representation remains his strength: four years later, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, at the age of 38, left such an imprinted pillow himself, teaching us to remember the people taken by the virus.

As an inspiration for further research, we suggest another interesting work by Felix … well, Felix arranged such piles of candies in the gallery rooms, which each visitor could help himself to. In this way, viewers spread candies and wraps around other rooms, and then to the streets and homes. For Felix, it was an allegory of the virus. Moving by sweetness and love.