“Untitled” (America) | Art & Artists

America has always been an unattainable dream, a place to dream about. It is an imperfect state. As a child I remember the America I imagined, that I constructed from different sources. That particular America was full of lights. Of shiny reflections, of mirages. Paradise.

The America that I now know is still a place of light, a place of opportunities, of risks, of justice, of racism, of injustice, of hunger and excess, of pleasure and growth. Democracy is a constant job, a collective dedication.

My sculpture “Untitled” (America) comes with no instructions. It can be installed any way someone might want. I relinquish control, as with most of my work. It’s useful, practical: just a set of lightstrings, like the ones we see at so many fairs and celebrations, or just hanging in a small street somewhere, full of sad possibilities of a party no one came to.

And like most of my work, and just like myself, the work is ephemeral. It doesn’t really exist, but hopefully will light some peoples’ spaces, at least for a short time. The instructions, or lack of them, guarantees that once I am no longer here this work will still be alive, in constant change, in different configurations. As in a dream, taking almost no space.

—Felix Gonzalez-Torres, 1995