VIENNA.- Continuing the series of contemporary art exhibitions at the Theseus Temple, this year the Kunsthistorisches Museum presents a single, major work by the Cuban-American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996). The exhibition is curated by Jasper Sharp, and generously supported by the Contemporary Patrons of the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Two strings of light bulbs tumble from the ceiling, collecting in a pool of light on the floor. While the meaning of the work is left open, its title “Untitled” (Lovers – Paris) suggests a pair of lovers who bring light and joy into each other’s lives. And yet this reading is accompanied by an inescapable melancholy. Despite their warm, affirming glow, each bulb will one day burn out and extinguish before being replaced by another. With this in mind, the work points to the fleeting nature of life, the vulnerability of the human form, and beyond, to the process of regeneration. “Untitled” (Lovers – Paris) belongs to a group of more than twenty light string works created by the artist. The first of them, made in 1991, was produced following the death of his partner, Ross Laycock.

The modest and open-ended quality of the work is reinforced by the fact that it has no fixed form of its own. The artist stipulated that whoever installs the work is free to choose its configuration. Hanging in the darkness of the Theseus Temple, the strings of lights occupy the same position that Canova’s sculpture itself once did. But in place of the heroic monumentality of the latter work, we now find stillness and sensitivity.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres was born in 1957 in Guáimaro, Cuba. In 1979, he moved to New York to study at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. His first solo exhibition, held at the Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York in 1990, was followed by some notable early successes outside the United States. He is best known for installations comprising everyday objects like sweets, light bulbs, or clocks, some of which invite visitors to interact with them. His often Minimalist compositions focus on subjects such as love, loss and sexuality, and are informed by his experience of HIV/AIDS, from which he died in 1996.

His work is as simple in its appearance as it is deeply layered in meaning. Everyday objects – mirrors, jigsaw puzzles, public billboards, piles of candy, or in this case, lights – are transformed into deeply personal meditations on the essential truths of human existence. His first-hand experience of the devastation wrought by AIDS lent his work a profound sense of mourning and loss. Despite his tragically short life, and an artistic career that lasted barely more than a decade, Gonzalez-Torres created an artistic legacy that continues to influence generations of artists today.