Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Love Letter from the War Front), 1988

Narrator:  In this fragment of a typed letter, declarations of love and wishes for bunny dreams are countered by the mention of a virus and the mysterious, incomplete phrase “rip good-bye.” The work, titled Love Letter from the War Front, leaves us with many questions—what war? And who are these lovers?

The letter comes from a series of enigmatic images that artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres made into jigsaw puzzles—pictures of families, children, travel, as well as news photographs. Looking at them is like opening a stranger’s scrapbook. Collectively, they reveal the intersection of personal and shared memories—and hint that much lies beneath the surface.

Rather than mounting and framing the puzzles, Gonzalez-Torres displayed them pinned to the wall in the manufacturer’s thin plastic bag, emphasizing their fragility. The puzzles are under constant threat of falling apart, evoking the transience of love and memory.