Artist David Horvitz was born in 1982 in Los Angeles.
He lives and works in Los Angeles. — davidhorvitz.com
Felix Gonzalez-Torres.
Untitled (A Corner of Baci). 1990.
Dimension variable.
Courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art, LA
I have a confrontation with art that lingers in the grey area of my memory. It wasn't until I was in college when I became interested in contemporary art, and making art. Though I was making photographs all through my childhood. But I have this memory from probably high school that sits in the back of my mind. My mother took me to MOCA in Los Angeles sometime in the 1990's. I can't remember what exhibition we went to see. But I do remember walking through the permanent collection and seeing a floor with a pile of candy wrapped in shiny wrappers. It must have been obviously a Felix Gonzales-Torres. I probably didn't think much of it. I probably walked through the entire museum not really thinking. I was a teenager from Los Angeles who had a punk band and didn't care about reading wall labels or contemplating contemporary art. Maybe I thought this pile of candy was dumb. Or maybe it intrigued me, and I thought it was subversive in some way. I don't remember. I only remember that I saw it and it stuck in my memory, and I've carried that memory with me today. I have no other memory of contemporary art from my childhood except for maybe Edward Kienholz's Back Seat Dodge '38 at LACMA. Why I am drawn and fascinated to this blur of a Felix Gonzales-Torres is because years later I would be drawn to his practice, and this past experience would somehow be validated in some manner. Of course I reacted to the pile of candy, because it was a great work of art, I just didn't know it yet.
David Horvitz