This happened Monday, as we were having breakfast at the Sheraton hotel in downtown Chicago. K had a wardrobe crisis in the morning. The new Hot Doug Encased Meat t shirt just wasn't looking good so she changed to the AIDS LifeCycle t shirt, which looked great. At breakfast we were talking about heavy things like politics, education in the US etc. A middle aged guy with his teenage daughter was sort of looking at us. I figured we're going to get the evil eye or something. Finally he asks if we're participating with AIDS LifeCycle. It turns out to be his first time and he was nervous. So we shared as much as we could and celebrated his upcoming journey. Smiles, good will, increased confidence, and a brief connection with strangers. All because of the choice of t-shirts. It's happened before while wearing ALC garb.

= = =

Monday was hot. I scheduled a visit to the Chicago Art Institute during the height of the early summer heat. I love the place. K's first time. We wondered around with no particular agenda.

Found a room with the works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres..

Deeply moving pieces for both of us.
Here's one... "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991.

A pile of brightly wrapped hard candy is piled in the corner. I took a candy and ate it as I considered his other works.
Here's the description.
"Felix González-Torres used ordinary materials to extraordinary ends. From 1986 until his early death in 1996, he produced work of uncompromising beauty and simplicity, transforming the everyday into profound meditations on love and loss. González-Torres’s quiet, elegiac oeuvre comprises serial work including lightbulb strings, candy spills, beaded curtains, language-based works, graph-paper drawings, and stacked paper sculptures. This installation is an allegorical portrait of the artist’s partner, Ross Laycock, who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1991. The 175 pounds of candy corresponds to Ross's ideal body weight. While on display in our contemporary galleries, viewers are encouraged to help themselves. As the pile diminishes, candies are replaced.

Then I spotted this piece. "Untitled" (Silver Beach), 1990.



Part of the description: "Each viewer is invited to take a sheet from the stack. In 1989 Felix Gonzalez-Torres made the first of his stck sculptures, which are comprised of sheets of paper piled neatly into a cubic form on the gallery floor..." "... The artist thus advanced a kind of subversive generosity tinged, as always, with sadness. As the sheets disappear, they are replenished; the work thereby endures despite its continual dematerialization."



I took a paper and stood for a moment. I didn't so much think as had a gut drive.
I handed my purse to K and asked her, without explaining, to document what was about to happen.
With the artist's huge piece of paper in hand I kneeled down in the middle of gallery floor and began to fold the paper, precisely, repetitively, silently - with each fold executed in long intentional movements.
At first people didn't notice.
Then some stumbled over me.
Then some noticed.
Then someone took a sheet a paper from the stack and started to fold.
I continued to fold.
More people took paper and sat down to fold.
Some knew the intent of Torres' work.
Others did not.
A father came in with a very young son and they sat down and made paper airplanes.
Art students murmurred while folding.
Tourist, laughing, joined in.
I continued to fold
a crane was taking shape.
The room was filled with people folding.
Creating.
Creating from a now dead artists intention.
Keeping art and generosity in motion.
The world changed just a bit.

I left the crane on the floor and walked away silently.
I felt different. Both very light and very heavy.

The security guard smiled a knowing smile at me.

Just a few odds and end photos...

View from Eurostar. I think on the UK side, but there's a section where both sides look really similar. Yellow field is mustard flowers...



See kumimonster working hard on her site updates.



Gare Du Nord, Paris

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