Untitled (Death by Gun) 1990

Felix Gonzalez-Torres made this stack of paper, entitled 'Untitled (Death by Gun)', as a meditation on loss and the act of remembrance. There is no real mark making as such, only printed words and images, but the process of its making is revealed in the serried edges of the stack. Each sheet bears the name and photograph of someone who died by gun violence. The stark black and white imagery emphasizes the gravity of the subject matter. It feels unmediated, direct, like a printed page from a history book. The viewer is invited to take a sheet, disrupting the whole. This dispersal is so potent because it mirrors the absence caused by each death, and yet, conversely, the distribution of names and images insists on their enduring presence. I think of Rauschenberg's use of newsprint and Jasper Johns' focus on everyday images. Like theirs, Felix’s work opens itself up to an ongoing conversation. It refuses to be fixed.