Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
November 2018
November 3, 2018–May 12, 2019
“Untitled” (Chemo) (1991), a beaded curtain work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, is included in Groundings at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago. Organized by Grace Deveney, MCA assistant curator, and Tara Aisha Willis, MCA associate curator of performance, the exhibition explores movement through a combination of artists’ residencies—allowing performers to use the gallery space for live rehearsals and performances—and existing works.
“Gonzalez-Torres choreographed for the viewer, suggesting paths to travel and actions to take,” Carol Bove writes in Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Specific Objects Without Specific Form, a book documenting the retrospective curated by Elena Filipovic with Bove, Tino Sehgal, and Danh Vo in 2010–2011, which included “Untitled” (Chemo). "The show was designed to complicate viewing," she continues, "so the viewer had to think about how to be a viewer at each stage: remove a poster, look at a traditional photograph, pass through a curtain, and so on. But it was also designed to circumvent or disrupt thinking through the use of elegance, beauty, touch, sexual desire, and candy."
“Untitled” (Chemo) was presented at David Zwirner in New York in 2017 as part of the gallery’s first exhibition of the artist’s influential work.
Image: Installation view, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Zwirner, New York, 2017