Cerith Wyn Evans

Untitled (Perfect Lovers +1)

Untitled (Perfect Lovers + 1) takes as its starting point Felix Gonzales-Torres’s seminal work Untitled (Perfect Lovers) in which two clocks were synchronized and left to run without interference, the implication being that one would stop before the other. Gonzales-Torres’ original work was a personal allusion to his own partner’s increasingly debilitating HIV-related illness, which grapples with the existential tension of coexistence in the face of death. Cerith Wyn Evans’s piece takes the same concept, and adds a third clock, moving from the intimacy of a monogamous relationship to suggest a more expansive, or possibly polyamorous alternative.Untitled (Perfect Lovers + 1) transforms the tension in Gonzales-Torres’s work into something more ambiguous and unsteady. The three clocks turn outward to force the viewer’s implication into both Evans’s work, as well as its reference to Gonzales-Torres.