”Untitled” (Fortune Cookie Corner) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres

May 2020

We are yet not open to visitors – but a work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres lingers at Magasin III as part of an expansive exhibition spread out in up to 1000 different places around the world.

Our Museum Director and Chief Curator Tessa Praun has been invited to participate in the largest-ever presentation of a work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, initiated by Andrea Rosen Gallery and David Zwirner Gallery in New York, for which 1,000 individuals have been invited to install Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled” (Fortune Cookie Corner), 1990, in a place of their choosing.⁣

A few weeks ago, I received an invitation by Andrea Rosen Gallery and David Zwirner Gallery in New York to participate as one of up to 1000 “places” around the world in the official installation of Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled” (Fortune Cookie Corner), 1990. This expansive exhibition takes place between today, May 25th, and July 5th 2020, and is curated by Andrea Rosen. ⁣

My chosen location is the entrance area of Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art. After a three-year intermission, Magasin III was scheduled to reopen to the public in early May with a new concept. Due to the turmoil the pandemic created, we had to postpone the reopening. The museum’s entrance area finds itself halfway through renovations. During the coming weeks, only construction workers and Magasin III staff will have access to and use this space as renovations are resumed.⁣
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In this way, “Untitled” (Fortune Cookie Corner) lingers in a state of limbo, in a semi-private/public space, existing as a prelude to the new museum concept launching in October: When we welcome visitors back, we will invite people to get closer to the art by also experiencing work under production and the process of caring for the collection when it is not shown.

As we needed to postpone our highly anticipated relaunch, it feels even more valuable to be part of this exhibition. Its implicit connections to chance, hope, and the unknown resonate deeply with me. Preparing my participation in this manifestation, and caring for it over the next weeks, gives my team and myself the chance to focus on what matters most in our work: art itself. Very needed in these strange times and until we can welcome visitors back.⁣
– Tessa Praun, Museum Director and Chief Curator

1000 INVITEES. HUNDREDS OF PARTICIPANTS. APPROX. 30 COUNTRIES, 24 U.S. STATES. 110 CITIES WORLDWIDE.

Tessa Praun is one of 1000 people around to world that has been invited to participate in this exhibition. Selected documentation of “places” in the total “site” is listed on Andrea Rosen Gallery’s website. Many participants also present their “place” on Instagram under the hashtag #FGT?exhibition⁣.

Read more about the exhibition and the artistry of Felix Gonzalez-Torres on Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation’s website.

Parameters for Participating

For participating as a “place”, initiators Andrea Rosen Gallery and David Zwirner Gallery listed the following parameters:

• The work exists even if it is not manifest.
• An authorized manifestation of the work is the work, and should only be referred to as the work.
• Each “place” will source and choose the fortune cookies that they use. Gonzalez-Torres stated that whenever possible, fortune cookies with optimistic fortunes should be used.
• Each “place” will choose the amount, between 240 – 1,000 fortune cookies, that they will use to initiate the installation.
• Each “place” will choose a location in which to install the work, in a pile.
• In accordance with the core tenets of the work, individuals must be allowed to take pieces from the work.
• On Sunday, June 14 (halfway through the exhibition), each “place” will regenerate its pile back to the amount of fortune cookies used to initially create the pile, using the same type of fortune cookies.
• The exhibition will end on Sunday, July 5. At that point, any remaining fortune cookies will no longer be “the work.”

Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957 Cuba – 1996 New York) had a solo exhibition at Magasin III (then called Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall) in 1992–93, curated by David Neuman. For the occasion, Gonzalez-Torres specifically created two new works: Untitled (For Stockholm), a site-specific installation consisting of 12 light strings comprising 500 light bulbs, and Untitled (for Jeff), a black and white photograph of an out-stretched hand reproduced on billboards in the city of Stockholm.

For this exhibition, a catalogue was produced with an essay written by David Deitcher, a writer, art historian, and critic living in New York City. Read the full essay here