Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return

The DC Public Library is pleased to partner with the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and Archives of American Art to present two installations as part of the exhibition Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return, on view from October 18, 2024 through July 6, 2025. 

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The exhibition is located at Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, 800 F Street NW, and continues outside the building with the placement of the artist’s light string work “Untitled” (America) (1994) in three key locations: the facade of the museum, the first floor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, and outdoors along 8th Street NW, near the museum, in partnership with the DowntownDC BID.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return will be the first major presentation of the artist’s work in Washington, D.C., in more than 30 years. The exhibition is co-curated by Josh T Franco, head of collecting, Archives of American Art, and Charlotte Ickes, curator of time-based media art and special projects, National Portrait Gallery. The exhibition will be on view from Oct. 18, 2024, through July 6, 2025, in the galleries at the National Portrait Gallery and Archives of American Art and will be accompanied by two publications.

Learn more at the National Portrait Gallery website

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“Untitled” (America), 1994
On view in the MLK Library, Floor 1 (East), near the corner of 9th and G Street NW, from October 18, 2024-July 6, 2025

Twelve parts, each: 42 light bulbs, waterproof rubber light sockets, and waterproof electrical cord 
Overall dimensions vary with installation 
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Purchase with funds from the Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Committee

From the exhibition text:

The light string hung in the corner of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library is one of twelve identical strings that together compose artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled” (America). This installation is part of the multisite exhibition Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and Archives of American Art, in partnership with the District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL). For the exhibition, the light strings are shown in different configurations at five locations. The artist encouraged these variations so exhibition organizers could also make decisions about the work’s display, thus contributing to its history and helping to ensure it remains “alive, in constant change, in different configurations.”

When illuminated, “Untitled” (America) requires continued maintenance from library staff who must replace burned bulbs. “Democracy is a constant job, a collective dedication,” Gonzalez-Torres wrote in a statement about “Untitled” (America). As a beacon hovering between promise and precarity, this work, like democracy, requires choice, maintenance, vigilance, and labor. During election season, the DCPL serves as a voting site. Without voting representatives in Congress, D.C. residents are only partially enfranchised. Exhibited in this context, what meanings about democracy does this work generate? As the artist said he hoped the work “will light some peoples’ spaces, at least for a short time.” Hopefully, “Untitled” (America) “lights your space” as you read, eat, and attend civic programs at the library, the museum across the street, and elsewhere.

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“Untitled” (Party Platform - 1980-1992), 1991 
On view in the MLK Library, Floor 1 (West), Digital Commons, from October 28-November 5, 2024

Black paper, endless supply 7 in. at ideal height × 40 × 26 in. 
Private collection

From the exhibition text:

The title of this paper stack work by artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres encourages both open and specific interpretations. The first part (“Untitled”) prompts you, the viewer, to supply your own potential titles. Similarly, you can take a piece of black paper from the stack, bring it wherever you go next, and make new meanings in new contexts. The purposefully parenthetical part of the title might refer to a political party platform, the document stating a party’s aims and principles. Yet the artist valued the ways language can convey multiple, even contradictory, meanings. How might the paper stack transform into a platform for a party, or a dance floor? The work can also be shown in multiple places at the same time. It is currently on view at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in the multisite exhibition Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return. How might two different contexts—a local library and a national museum—prompt changes in meaning around this one work? 

“Untitled” (Party Platform - 1980-1992) is intentionally located close to voting booths. On the east side of the building, you can see Gonzalez-Torres’s light string work “Untitled” (America). These artworks invite you to ponder the various forms America takes in her past, present, and future.

The installations are presented in partnership with the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and Archives of American Art, as part of the exhibition Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return, on view from October 18, 2024 through July 6, 2025. Other sites include in the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, including the facade of the Old Patent Office Building; and outdoors along 8th Street between D and F streets NW in partnership with the DowntownDC BID. This exhibition, and the DC Public Library Art & Exhibits Program, are made possible in part with support from the DC Public Library Foundation.

Explore the Artwork with the SmARTify App

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As part of its partnership on this exhibition, DC Public Library will be giving away copies of a new book, titled Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Final Revenge (A Workbook), written by exhibition curators By Josh T Franco, head of collecting, Archives of American Art, and Charlotte Ickes, curator of time-based media arts and special projects, National Portrait Gallery. 

The first book to be published for the exhibition, Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return focuses on a single artwork: “Untitled” (1989), the artist’s first word portrait. Josh T Franco and Charlotte Ickes offer insights into the curatorial process of creating two new versions of the artist’s transformative work for the National Portrait Gallery and the Archives of American Art’s Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery. The dual-language book (English and Spanish) contains an interactive section inspired by “Untitled” and a map of the sites in downtown Washington, D.C., where Gonzalez-Torres’ work will be on display. Copies will be available for free in the museum’s bookstore, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library of the District of Columbia Public Library, Tan Dinh restaurant in Paris, the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami Libraries, Visual AIDS in New York City and elsewhere. This publication received federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the National Museum of the American Latino.

Throughout the exhibition, visit the MLK Library, Floor 1 (East), near the installation of "Untitled" (America), to pick up a free copy while supplies last.

Top to Bottom

1. Detail of "Untitled" (America), 1994. Light strings suspended from lamp posts on E Street NW, in downtown Washington, D.C., as part of Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return. National Portrait Gallery and Archives of American Art, 18 Oct. 2024 – 6 Jul. 2025. Photo: Matailong Du © Estate Felix Gonzalez-Torres, courtesy Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation
2. Installation view,"Untitled" (America), 1994. Facade of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture as part of Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return. National Portrait Gallery and Archives of American Art, 18 Oct. 2024 – 6 Jul. 2025. Photo: Matailong Du © Estate Felix Gonzalez-Torres, courtesy Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation
3. "Untitled" (America), 1994. Light strings installed in the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library as part of Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return. National Portrait Gallery and Archives of American Art, 18 Oct. 2024 – 6 Jul. 2025. Photo: Matailong Du © Estate Felix Gonzalez-Torres, courtesy Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation
4. "Untitled" (Party Platform - 1980-1992), 1991. Installation view: Dark Matter. White Cube, London, England, United Kingdom. 7 Jul. – 9 Sep. 2006. Photo: Stephen White © Estate Felix Gonzalez-Torres, courtesy Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation