Gonzalez-Torres was born in 1957, in Cuba, got to know Spain as a child, in 1971, when he and his sister travelled through Madrid, coming from Cuba and before settling in Puerto Rico with an uncle. Although he began his artistic training in Puerto Rico, he moved to New York to continue his studies, where he consolidated his career as an individual artist and also as a member of the collective Group Material.
From the perspective of an identity in transformation, Gonzalez- Torres's work revolves around a complex politics of identity that resists the simplistic labels into which it usually falls, and which allows his work to enter into the diverse contexts of Spain, Latin America and the Caribbean. Always in transit between contexts and identities, in his work Gonzalez-Torres meticulously traces the complex codifications of a mutable identity.
He repeatedly questioned and subverted classifications that he believed marginalised and stereotyped the "Hispanic" artist; this led him to remove the accents in his name, a gesture that underlined and altered simplistic or discriminatory identity labels. Gonzalez-Torres aspired to equality instead, while remaining aware that the act of looking already embodies an identity. In this sense, he considered aesthetics to be intrinsically political.
From the perspective of an identity in transformation, Gonzalez- Torres's work revolves around a complex politics of identity that resists the simplistic labels into which it usually falls, and which allows his work to enter into the diverse contexts of Spain, Latin America and the Caribbean. Always in transit between contexts and identities, in his work Gonzalez-Torres meticulously traces the complex codifications of a mutable identity.
He repeatedly questioned and subverted classifications that he believed marginalised and stereotyped the "Hispanic" artist; this led him to remove the accents in his name, a gesture that underlined and altered simplistic or discriminatory identity labels. Gonzalez-Torres aspired to equality instead, while remaining aware that the act of looking already embodies an identity. In this sense, he considered aesthetics to be intrinsically political.
