The tension between the public and the private is one of the main themes in the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres. These works were carried out in 1991, the year his partner, Ross Laycock, died of AIDS-related complications. Mounted on rigid cardboard and transformed into jigsaw puzzles, these images account for his life with Ross in recent years. The fragments of a photographed letter are actually excerpts from their intimate correspondence, from a last letter, while “Untitled” (Ross Scuba Diving) hints at what could be a local joke of the couple, an image that made sense to them but that leaves us open to imagine endless scenarios. Through the materiality of these jigsaw puzzles, Gonzalez-Torres evokes the fragile nature of memory and the complex process of remembering.

Photographer: Lance Brewer
Image courtesy of Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
© Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Courtesy of the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation