“The work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres appears disarmingly simple: a combination of text pieces, monochrome canvases and altered photographs of crowds. Juxtaposing cultural trivia with turning points in history, consumer products with crises, this installation explores the ways in which the media shapes our sense of history. Through understatement and a characteristically deadpan manner, Gonzalez-Torres touches on complexities of language and memory. The text pieces in particular challenge the viewer to decipher the differences and connections within lists of dates and names that seem to caption a blank space. In other works, Gonzalez-Torres creates constellations made from cropped and distorted photographs of crowds taken from newspapers and magazines. Enlarged into grainy abstractions, the circular scenes resemble microscopic views of viruses, offering a disquieting view of the tensions between the public and the personal in the age of AIDS.”