iMuseo Reina SofíaAtocha
Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Sweet Revenge
This exhibition has ended.
A major exhibition of Cuban-American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996), whose candy spills, paper stacks and light installations addressed loss, love and identity during the AIDS crisis.
Museum websiteMore in Madrid
A pile of blue candies in transparent wrappers lies on the floor, with an ideal weight of 325 lb. Visitors can take one, and the museum tops the pile up again. That piece, Untitled (Revenge), 1991, gives the show its name. Gonzalez-Torres first showed it in Madrid and later wrote of returning to the city after almost twenty years: "sweet revenge."
More than fifty works fill the first floor of the Sabatini Building: candy spills, paper stacks, light strings, framed serigraphs and bead curtains you walk through, some carrying biomedical data. Loans come from the Guggenheim, SFMOMA and Glenstone. Flash Art's Valerie Mindlin reads the whole as an elegy in progress, for his partner Ross Laycock, who died in 1991, and for the artist's own body.
It closes on Monday 12 October, when entry is free all day. Otherwise tickets are €12, and entry is free Monday to Saturday 19:00 to 21:00.
Editor's pick
Felix Gonzalez-Torres's candy spills, paper stacks and light installations, made during the AIDS crisis and about loss, love and identity, in a major survey.
Look for
Untitled (Revenge), 1991
A spill of blue candies in transparent wrappers, ideal weight 325 lb, that shrinks as visitors take pieces and is refilled.
Untitled (Lover Boys), 1991
Candies in silver wrappers, an endless supply with an ideal weight of 355 lb.
The paper stacks
Neat piles of identical sheets, some printed with short phrases or lists of civil rights milestones, that visitors can take away.
The bead curtains
Strands of crystal beads you have to walk through to pass; some display biomedical data about the body and disease.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Out-Of-Town Guests
With kids
Under-18s are always free with ID at the ticket office.
Also at Museo Reina Sofía
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Image credits
6
- Museo Reina SofíaMuseoreinasofia, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- We Are Nature: An Immersive Audiovisual ExperienceCourtesy of CaixaForum Madrid
- CaixaForum MadridDraceane / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museo del PradoEmilio J. Rodríguez Posada (Emijrp), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Museo Thyssen-BornemiszaLuis García (Zaqarbal), CC BY-SA 3.0
- Museo NavalFernando, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0