Craving snacks during the long months of self-isolation? A never-endingpile of fortune cookies from the late Cuban American artistFlix Gonzlez-Torresmight be coming soon to a location near you.

Most of the worlds art galleries are closed, but David Zwirner and Andrea Rosen are forging ahead with an ambitious and outside-the-box exhibition of Gonzlez-Torress 1990 work Untitled (Fortune Cookie Corner). It is the first work in the artists Candy seriesthe rest feature wrapped candiesmeant invoke both the experience of loss and a sense of immortality.

Theres no telling where you might encounter the mound of Chinese desserts, all free for the taking. Rosen, who is curating the show, has asked 1,000 peoplearound the world to install the work in a location of their choosinghomes, art institutions, and public spaces are all fair game.

This may sound unconventional, butGonzlez-Torress work isnt bound by the same restrictions as that of other artists. The owner needs to follow specific but open-ended parameters in manifesting the work, which can be installed in more than one place at a timemaking it perfect for our current moment, when much of the world is under indefinite lockdown.

This is one of the only works in the world that can travel and be accessible right now, Rosen told Artnet News. Theres so many people right now trying to do incredible online projects. Felix can actually afford people aphysical experience with an artworkand not just looking at it, but thinking about it, and their involvement and what it means to them.

Theres also an undeniable poignancy to staging the work right now, givenGonzlez-Torress activism against AIDS, the disease that claimed his life in 1996. But perhaps more importantly, sharing the experience of manifesting the work, normally reserved for the owner and select curators, aims to help combat the sense of loneliness and isolation that so many are feeling at this time.

What is important about this moment is how global it is, Rosen added. It make people acknowledge that significant criseswhether that be a war, a genocide, or the AIDS epidemichave often been depersonalized for those people who are not affected. This moment is an opportunity to realize what it feels like to be one site, one globe, oneworldeverything thats happening affects us all.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (USA Today) (1990). Candies individually wrapped in red, silver, and blue cellophane, endless supply. Installation view of Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Specific Objects without Specific Form, Museum Fr Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany, 2011. The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation, courtesy of Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York.

In 2017, Rosen closed her gallerys physical spaceto focus on representing the Gonzlez-Torres estateher very first show, back in 1990, featured the artists workteaming up with Zwirner to do so.The new exhibition will open two days after theFlix Gonzlez-Torres Foundation debuts a new website.

Rosen has inviteda diverse group of participants to take part, including friends of Gonzlez-Torres, artists, curators, colleagues, and even the author of this piece.Each participant has received a detailed set of instructions explaining how to install the work, which is on loan from a private collection. The piles are to feature between 240 and 1,000 fortune cookies. (The original installation was approximately 10,000 cookies.) Each participant is responsible for sourcing their ownyou can buy 350 cookies on Amazon for less than $30and is asked to buy enough to completely replenish the pile once during the duration of the show.

One of the specific choices, Rosen explained, is that halfway through, everyone has to regenerate it to the original size. So everyone has the opportunity to experience both the potential loss within the piece, and also the notions of rebuilding and regeneration that is a very important part of the work.

Some may find their pile unchanged over the course of the show. For others, perhaps not a single cookie will remain. There will be very different representations of how it shifts and changes in size and shape every day, Rosen said. But regardless, at the exhibitions end, the cookies will cease to be considered a work of art (and some participants will be left with an extremely large supply of fortune cookies to munch on).

Participants are also instructed to document the manifestation of the work in photo and video, from the installation process to interactions with the work over the exhibitions six-week run.

The piece is never stagnant. Its never in the past. Its always the present, said Rosen. Its alive.

Flix Gonzlez-Torres: Untitled (Fortune Cookie Corner) will be on view at 1,000 to-be-announced locations across the world, May 25July 5, 2020.

Read more:
Want a Gigantic Pile of Cookies in Your Home? 1,000 People Are Being Asked to Hoard Fortune Cookies as Part of an Ambitious Global Art Show - artnet...