DAMIEN HIRST & FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES – CANDY
2013-11-24This is the first time that paintings from Hirst’s Visual Candy series have been presented together exclusively, and a candy spill work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres will serve as a counterpoint to the paintings. The exhibition showcases the ways in which each artist used the signifier of candy during the early 1990s, exploring questions of pure aesthetics and identity.
Featured in this exhibition is Gonzalez-Torres’ “Untitled”, 1992, a unique sculpture made of candies individually wrapped in variously coloured cellophane. Copiously piled in corners or spread across the floor as glittering carpets, the work can be manifested repeatedly in different forms and can continually change shape through every presentation. Although unique, the nature of the work is such that it can exist in more than one place at a time, and it will be installed in three different forms within the gallery.
The viewer is invited to actively participate, freely choosing whether to touch, take or consume the candy, engaging in a vibrant and multisensory experience. These sweets may be replenished regularly by gallery staff, creating a dynamic and varied ebb and flow. The volume and form of the work is thus altered throughout each day, continual change becoming the only element of permanence that defines the ‘life’ of the work.
Gonzalez-Torres once described how the candy spills were about learning to ‘let go’, a ‘refusal to make a static form [or] monolithic sculpture, in favour of a disappearing, changing, unstable and fragile form.’ Indeed, the candy spills imply that change enables the means for our continued existence; that life itself is in a permanent state of flux. Linear time collapses, as past, present and future coexist within these works, which have the possibility to be continually replenished or to simply disappear; the expansiveness of any moment, beyond the physical, is suggested.
Exhibition runs through to November 30th, 2013
Blain|Southern Gallery
4 Hanover Square
London
W1S 1BP
