FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES — Serpentine Gallery, London, 2000

Exhibition announcement postcard. 14.8 × 10.5 cm. Offset print on card. Published by the Serpentine Gallery, London. Exhibition: 1 June–16 July 2000. Sponsored by Bloomberg.

Recto reproduces an installation photograph of Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled” (1988), a framed photostat measuring 26 × 33 cm, produced as an edition of one with one artist’s proof. Verso printed in pale blue with exhibition information and full work credit.

Issued for the Serpentine’s posthumous retrospective of Gonzalez-Torres, described by the gallery as the first major exhibition of his work in Britain. The project extended beyond Kensington Gardens through presentations at Camden Arts Centre, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal College of Art, together with twelve billboards distributed across London.

The photographed work belongs to the artist’s early date pieces, begun in 1987. White text positioned low against a black field connects public events, consumer objects and fragments of popular memory: Center for Disease Control 1981 Streakers 1974 Go-Go Boots 1965 Barbie Doll 1960 Hula hoopla 1958 Disneyland 1955 3-D Movies 1952 Boo-Boo. The opening reference marks 1981, when the CDC published its first scientific account of what would become known as HIV/AIDS. Rather than forming a conventional chronology, the entries construct an associative history in which political crisis, commercial culture, pleasure and private recollection occupy the same surface.

The card introduces a further transfer. A nearly unique artwork becomes a reproducible exhibition support. The photograph records not only the photostat but a viewer reading it, his profile and faint reflection held against its black surface. Work, spectator and institutional document are compressed into a portable image.

The design is especially effective: the close encounter on the front is followed by an unusually open reverse, with institutional information confined to two small areas of blue typography. Most of the card remains empty. Publicity approaches silence.

Condition: good vintage condition. Light overall toning, minor surface marks and handling wear, with scattered faint marks to the otherwise unprinted reverse. No writing, mailing marks or major creases.