The Museum of Modern Art
For Immediate Release August 1997
ON BILLBOARDS AROUND NEW YORK CITY FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES WORK CHALLENGES NOTIONS OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC
The work is part of the Werner and Elaine Dannheisser Collection, on View at The Museum of Modern Art from September 30,1997-January 20,1998
Beginning on September 1,1997, a work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-96) will be on view at various sites around New York City as part of the exhibition On the Edge: Contemporary Art from the Werner and Elaine Dannheisser Collection, opening at The Museum of Modern Art on September 30,1997. The work, Untitled (1991), consists of a single enlarged black-and-white photographic image—that of an empty double bed—displayed on twelve billboards in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. (See below for a list of exact locations.)
In addition to its urban locations, the picture will be pasted to a gallery wall as part of On the Edge: Contemporary Art from the Werner and Elaine Dannheisser Collection, on view through January 20,1998. The Collection, one of the most significant gifts of contemporary art the Museum has ever received, was given last year by Elaine Dannheisser and the Dannheisser Foundation. Organized by Robert Storr, Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, the exhibition is supported in part by TDI.
First presented in the Museum's Projects series in 1992, the billboard-scale image of the bed with its rumpled sheets and pillows, clearly imprinted with the traces of two people, is an image without words, where absence, rather than presence, leaves an overwhelming impression.
The permeable conceptual and physical boundaries separating what is considered "private" and "public" are central to much of the artist's work. The tousled bed and the changeful, vital cityscape compete for attention. In displaying the work within the relatively intimate space of the Museum and the very public arena of New York City, Museum visitors and passersby are challenged to consider the image's private content, its personal connotations, and its public context.
As part of On the Edge: Contemporary Art from the Werner and Elaine Dannheisser Collection, Felix Gonzalez-Torres's Untitled (1991) is installed at the following sites through January 31, 1998.
Brooklyn
4th Avenue and 65th Street
5th Avenue and 94th Street
Fort Hamilton Parkway and 61st Street
65th Street and Bay Parkway
Manhattan
Manhattan Bridge and Henry Street
41st Street and 8th Avenue
14th Street and 10th Avenue
West Side Highway and 48th Street
Queens
Roosevelt Avenue and College Point Avenue
Rockaway Boulevard and Liberty Avenue
Metropolitan Avenue and Aubrey Avenue
Yellowstone Boulevard and Austin Street
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For further information or photographic materials, contact Lisbeth Mark, Department of Communications, 212/708-9847. Visit our Web site at www.moma.org. No. 52