Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and the Archives of American Art Co-Present “Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return”
by The Editors of ARTnews · ARTnewsThe Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and Archives of American Art invite visitors to contemplate what a portrait can be with “Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return,”on view through July 6, 2025. This is the largest presentation of the late artist’s work in Washington, D.C., in 30 years.
Born in Guáimaro, Cuba, in 1957, Felix Gonzalez-Torres rose to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s to become one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. He lived primarily in New York, as well as in Madrid; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Los Angeles; and Miami, where he died from AIDS-related causes in 1996. During his lifetime, Gonzalez-Torres expanded the horizon of what a portrait could be, from a genre often seen as a static representation of individuals to one with the capacity to change, remain resonant, and encourage collaboration. Co-curated by Josh T Franco, head of collecting at the Archives of American Art, and Charlotte Ickes, curator of time-based media art and special projects at the National Portrait Gallery, the multisite exhibition will focus on the late artist’s deep engagement with portraiture, the construction of identity, and how history is told and inherited.
Visitors can experience the exhibition from multiple locations and viewpoints—both inside museum walls and outdoors. While the majority of the artist’s work will be on view inside the National Portrait Gallery and the Archive of American Art’s galleries, the artist’s light string work “Untitled” (America), 1994, will span three additional locations: the F Street facade of the National Portrait Gallery, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library of the District of Columbia Public Library, and along 8th Street NW between F and E Streets, in partnership with the DowntownDC BID.
Playing with non-conventional notions of portraiture and the complexities of identity, indoor sections of the exhibition will include several of the artist’s word portraits, including two new versions of “Untitled” (1989), physically manifesting as a list of events and corresponding dates painted directly onto a wall at “frieze height.” Gonzalez-Torres intended for owners of these works to create new versions on an ongoing basis, allowing the portraits to be responsive and exist in multiple versions across time and space. In the artist’s words, “We are not what we think we are, but rather a compilation of texts. A compilation of histories, past present and future, always, always, shifting, adding, subtracting, gaining.”
Also on view and exemplary of the artist’s conception of portraits that change across time and space will be “Untitled” (Portrait of Dad), 1991, and “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991. While these two works have ideal weights of 175 pounds, each can be installed in different configurations with an endless supply of candy sourced by the museum.
Other non-figurative works by Gonzalez-Torres will be in conversation with traditional likenesses of historical figures, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Gertrude Stein, Walt Whitman, and others in the Portrait Gallery’s collection. The Archives of American Art’s Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery will also display artworks and correspondence that animate the artist’s relationship to appropriation, source material and the photographic medium. For the first time in the United States, and only the second time internationally, the “complete set of individual puzzles,” consisting of all 55 of the artist’s editioned puzzle works, created from 1987 to 1992, will be on view.
Audiences can visit the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and Archives of American Art daily from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., 364 days a year. Admission is free.
“Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return” received support from the Fisher Arts Impact Fund and federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the National Museum of the American Latino.