May 22, 2020
Pablo Haiek
Caracas, Vanezuela
@haiek10
Emailed to Andrea Rosen on June 5, 2020
PERSONAL APPROACH
On a personal level, the work of Felix González-Torres is full of significance, as it often
tells us about human interaction and how the people that surround us affect our lives.
It’s a work that encourages the spectator to think (often inside themselves), as a way
of introspection to how people connect with each other. I think the best word that can
describe González-Torres’s work is transformation. Not only because we see some of
his works change shapes during a period of time, but also because his candies stop
being candies, his light bulbs stop being light bulbs, etc. and take a whole new meaning.
Since I received the invitation on May 5th, I have been thinking about what I could do
with this enourmous challenge, taking into account the limitations we have here.
Thinking about the place where I wanted to install this wonderful work, it occurred to
me to use my art studio, which is currently empty. Precisely this emptiness takes on a
very particular meaning (both on a personal level and a collective level) in these
moments that we have had to live. Confinement and isolation have brought about a
void in our surroundings, and in a way have affected our day-to-day lives, bringing all
corners of the world to a “pause”, which I never thought could happen. This is the
main reason I decided to install “the work” in this space. “The work” is made up of 525
fortune cookies. It will remain in this “place” for a period of 6 weeks.
So having an empty space loaded with personal meaning, in moments of confinement,
I decided to divide the exhibition in two parts – before and after the regeneration of “the work”.
In the first phase, the interaction is extremely personal, an intimate interaction with
“the work”, since I’m only person who interacts with it; but since it is part of a global
exhibition and there are platforms on the part of the galleries involved to be able to
show it and share it with the public, this is where the ability to share my experience
comes in.
After June 14th - Regeneration - this approach will change (keeping in mind that the
situation allows it). That change would have a lot of meaning with our current
condition. We are experiencing a pandemic that has had us confined for weeks. What
we knew as normality has changed, and we must adapt to be able to evolve from this.
So I plan to change the approach after the regeneration of “the work”, so it opens to
the public and different people can interact with it, having the whole experience.
In conclusion, it is a minimalist approach with intimate interaction with “the work”,
but later will open it’s interaction to the public. With the ability to transcend the
spaces of my empty studio...
