"Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)

"Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) is a work of art by Félix González-Torres (or Felix Gonzalez-Torres), currently in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, United States. The work is one of the twenty "candy works" in Gonzalez-Torres's oeuvre. The candy works are manifestable; the artworks are not physically permanent, they can exist in more than one place at a time and can vary from one installation to the next in response to the decisions made by the exhibitor, the interactions of audiences, and changing circumstances. This candy work has an ideal weight of 175 pounds (79 kg), representing González-Torrés' partner Ross Laycock.
A manifestation of "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) consists of a pile of candies individually wrapped in variously colored wrappers. Viewers are permitted to choose to take a piece of candy from the work and the caption states that there is an “endless supply” of candies.
The specific type of candy used to manifest the work, the initial choice of configuration and overall size and shape of a particular manifestation of the work are decided by the exhibitor. The candy works have been exhibited as rectangular carpets of candies, heaped in the corners of exhibition spaces, spread across the floor in organic arrangements and shaped into mounds on the ground, etc.
While the ideal weight of the work is a constant, the actual weight of the candies used to manifest the work is always in flux. The amount of candy changes as exhibitors make decisions about the weight that is initially installed, viewers choose to take candies from the work, and whether the candy is allowed to diminish and/or is replenished over the course of an exhibition. In one specific installation, art handlers at the Art Institute of Chicago recalled that the decisions for maintaining candies varied depending on visitors "During very busy periods, [we] may replenish the pile twice weekly, with approximately 45 pounds (20 kg) being added to the sculpture. On average, we add 15 or 20 pounds (6.8 or 9.1 kg) weekly." Sometimes the handlers would add candies to rebalance the piece's color.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres came up with specific and open-ended parameters for each artwork and the artist's foundation gathered information on the structure and nature of the artist's work via 'Core Tenets' for each body of work.
The Core Tenets for the body of candy works apply to “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)." While each body of work follows its own set of rules, Gonzalez-Torres’s practice includes purposeful variations, within a body of work and between bodies of work, in order to foster engagement and questioning.
“Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) was first exhibited in a solo-presentation of the artist's work at Luhring Augustine Hetzler Gallery in Los Angeles, California, which was open from October 19 – November 16, 1991. The press release for the exhibition stated: "The real life and work of an artist exists within its own flowing continuum."
González-Torres's partner Ross Laycock died of AIDS related complications in 1991, the same year as "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)'s creation. The work has been interpreted as an "allegorical portrait" of Laycock as his health deteriorated.
The work was included in Could Not Bear the Sight of It: Contemporary Art Interventions on Critical Whiteness, an exhibition at the Jane Addams Hull House-Museum in Chicago, IL in 2012. The exhibition, curated by Lisa Yun Lee and Theaster Gates, sought to "ask a series of questions about how whiteness is both invisible and dominant: Is there any such thing as white culture? What is the secret to being white? How has whiteness changed over time? What does a world without racism look like?"
In 2016, "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) was installed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of the exhibition Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible. The exhibition centered on the question of when an artwork is considered finished, and included works which were left incomplete by their makers, as well as those which were intentionally unfinished as a way to embrace unlimited possibilities.
The Art Story Foundation viewed the candy-eating aspect as "[one becoming] complicit in the disappearing process - akin to the years-long public health crisis of HIV/AIDS." Lauren Weinberg of Time Out Chicago interpreted it similarly: "the diminishment recalls how he wasted away before dying."
The Art Story Foundation called "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) "one of González-Torres's most recognizable works." As of 2023, the work has been included in over 30 different exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world.
At some point between the summer of 2018 and fall of 2022, the Art Institute of Chicago removed references to Ross Laycock, homosexuality, and AIDS from the wall label for “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.). This information remained in the audio guide that accompanied the installation. The edited label applauded Gonzalez-Torres's "uncanny ability to produce elegant and unrestrained sculptural forms out of common materials" and equates the 175 lb. of candy to the "average weight of an adult male". The edited label was replaced with a new wall label which included the previously removed context after the removal was decried by a letter in The Windy City Times and by a viral Tweet.
Joshua Chambers-Letson was quoted in an October 2022 article for the Chicago Tribune: “Felix left a lot of responsibility in the hands of the people who exhibit the piece, and he was very generous in allowing spectators to produce any meaning that they need to in relationship to the work…. I can understand that person's reaction, but also, Ross is in the title. Felix secured for the rest of all time that there would be a reference to Ross (in the work).”
In January 2023, Artnet News published an article that commented on these wall labels, saying "what the incident at the Art Institute illustrated was the complexities and nuances inherent to Gonzalez-Torres's work—and the intense personal connection to his story that many feel."
The Smithsonian faced similar criticism from art scholar Ignacio Darnaude writing for Out Magazine about their 2024 installation of the work at the National Portrait Gallery. The label displayed with the piece also excluded reference to Ross Laycock, homosexuality, and AIDS.