Felix Gonzalez-Torres was a Cuban-born American artist known for his landmark installations that transform humble objects into solemn meditations on death and intimacy. Working during the height of the AIDS crisis, he conveyed the loss of his partner, Ross Laycock, through a variety of emotionally charged objects such as strings of lightbulbs, empty beds, and burnt-out candles. In one of his most poignant works, Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) (1991), viewers are invited to take a piece of candy from a 175 pound pile—his partner’s healthy body weight—that is continuously replenished. Born on November 26, 1957 in Guáimaro, Cuba, the artist and his sister were sent to Puerto Rico in 1957, where he went on to study art at the University of Puerto Rico. Moving to New York, NY in 1979, he attended both the Whitney Independent Study Program and the Pratt Institute, developing an interest critical theory, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art that inspired his practice. Today, his work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among many others. Gonzalez-Torres died from AIDS-related complications on January 9, 1996 in Miami, FL at the age of 38.