Perfect Lovers

This is 'Perfect Lovers'

Created by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, it is not just one of my favorite pieces, it also happens to be one I consider to be pure 'genius'.

Even if your first inclination is to think the proverbial:

"I can do that!, literally take two Ikea-looking clocks and but them side to side."

It is a genius because you would be right, you can actually do that!!!

FGT was a very generous artist because anyone can have his work in their very own home and at times for free! 

Where Felix demonstrates his ingenuity is by injecting humanity into these otherwise inanimate objects by titling the piece 'Perfect Lovers'.

And in turn, he makes the clocks symbolic and gives it meaning.

The object, to begin with, is a marker of time and a signifier of time passing...

Time could be representative of that specific moment a couple met...

or even the time they'll spend together.

He expresses their "perfectness" by pairing identical clocks keeping identical time and starting off with the seconds hand in perfect unison, and as with any object, once you pair it with the same object, it becomes a couple, highlighting their sameness and giving a nod to a (his) same-sex relationship.

Each clock is thereby representative of him and of his lover, Ross, existing in perfect harmony by keeping synchronistic time.

But because it is battery-operated, one of the clocks will eventually slow down and eventually run out of power before the other one and both will eventually cease to mark time....

This in turn becomes an indicator of his and Ross's mortality and an end to their time together, making it a poignant and moving piece for two people who were battling AIDS.

But it doesn't just stop there, the two circular outlines of the clocks touch and in turn draw out a horizontal figure eight...which is associated with the infinity symbol.

A testament to love....everlasting....forever....

that love exists even after loss

and that even the art piece itself can last beyond its usefulness,

for even if both clocks stop marking time, their union remains infinite in itself...

GENIUS!

Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Felix Gonzalez-Torres is perhaps the artist who most influences my work (or at least is in the back of my mind) and this image is the first of his I ever came across. 

One of his better known photographic images: a rumpled bed with two pillows. The image is relatively boring in a conventional sense especially for one you would expect to see on a billboard, but like most of Felix's work you need to know a little bit about it before you can truly assess it.

As part of his Billboard project, this image was displayed on several billboards across the city simultaneously (in this case NYC). This was done way back in the Middle Ages when there was no such thing as the internet (or at least it was in its infancy)...and it was also during a time when GLBT lifestyles were relatively invisible (especially to mainstream America).  Yet with this work he delicately touches upon two highly charged issues that will be part of a national discourse for the next twenty-plus years (and still is today).

The first being the distinction between the public vs. the private, something that will become increasingly blurred and obsolete with the ubiquity of the internet. By displaying an image of the bed he shared with his then recently-deceased partner, Ross, via a highly visible and commercial venue, it begins to question the boundaries between the public and the private... and more specifically to FG-T's intent, the role of government and society in our personal lives.

The second issue this work touches upon is the collective idea of a conjugal bed.

By displaying what is in all actuality an illicit scene (The U.S. Supreme Court had yet to strike down the laws that made same-sex sexual activity legal in the country and would not do so until 12 years later) the viewer is left to ponder the illegality and harm of such a serene site.

This image is not the graphic representation of a criminalized sexual act but a gentle reminder that an expression of love goes beyond the act of sex and unites us all in its commonality regardless of orientation.

You would be hard pressed to find someone that considers this image perverse and offensive regardless of political or religious leanings, yet this image is evidence of the most intimate and personal site of a relationship (in this case same-sex).

It is a tribute to love and loss while existing as a highly-charged political statement.