The Princeton University Art Museum is currently exhibiting billboards of the same untitled photo by the late HIV-positive Cuban artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996). They’ll be on display through December 16.The work depicts an empty, unmade bed still with the indentations of having been slept in. He created the work in 1991 as an elegy for his partner Ross Laycock, who died that same year. Gonzalez-Torres died in 1996. Both passed away from AIDS-related complications.
When he originally created the work, he mounted the image on 24 billboards. The museum has mounted the image on 12 billboards in New Jersey from Trenton to New Brunswick.
As a gay HIV-positive first generation Cuban-American living in New Jersey, I can’t help but feel an intense connection to this exhibit. If you’re driving through the state sometime soon, make an effort to see it.
For a map of the billboard locations, click here.
To read a 1998 POZ article about Gonzalez-Torres, click here.
For more information about his foundation, click here.
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