Félix González-Torres and the Art of Reproducibility

After reading Benjamin's claims about how the era of reproducibility has affected the work of art, I thought about the work of the Cuban artist Félix González-Torres, who deals exactly with this issue in his projects (that are also very politicized works), in relation with the art gallery/museum "worlds".

One of his best-known works, which is related with the reproducibility of the work of art due to its form, is “Untitled (Death by Gun)". It consists of a thick stack of poster-sized white paper, each printed with the same graphic: the faces, names, ages and hometowns of 464 people who were killed by gunshots over one week — May 1 to 7, 1989 — along with a brief synopsis of the circumstances of the person’s death.

The relevant aspect (in relation to Benjamin's text), is that the viewer is invited to take and keep sheets from the stack, which is continually replenished, suggesting the continuity of gun violence.
















I consider, beyond the political claims of this work and many other of his projects, it really questions the idea of the original and unique piece of art placed in an art gallery in front of an audience.

Julio