The Absence of the Body in Portrait of Ross in L.A: Loss, Memory and Invisibility During the AIDS Crisis in the United States

Abstract

"Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)" (1991) by Félix González-Torres is a work that has been the subject of multiple interpretations due to its symbolic weight and its relationship to the AIDS crisis in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s. The present research focuses on analyzing the physical absence of the body as a metaphor for loss, memory, and the invisibilization of the gay community affected by the disease. Through an interdisciplinary approach that combines queer theory and philosophy of art, it seeks to explore how the work not only represents personal grief, but also acts as a political denunciation against the norms of invisibilization and marginalization exercised upon queer bodies. The adopted methodology articulates contextual, formal, and theoretical analysis, situating the piece within the artist's corpus and in dialogue with contemporary activist practices.

The theoretical analysis is grounded in Judith Butler's concepts of precariousness and performativity, Michel Foucault's biopolitics and punishment, and Paul Ricoeur's memory and forgetting. It posits that the progressive disappearance of the candies in the work materializes the vulnerability of affected persons, and that the act of viewer participation creates a space of resistance against social exclusion. The central hypothesis maintains that "Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)" is a metaphor for resistance and collective memory that confronts narratives of forgetting.

This text contributes to academic discussion by offering a new reading of the absence of the body in the work. This absence is interpreted not only as a process of individual mourning, but also as a political act that challenges the norms of heteronormativity.