Felix Gonzalez-Torres Sites Of Siege

Installation view of “Untitled” (Portrait of Austrian Airlines), 1993, the green painted text frieze along the wall, and other Felix Gonzalez-Torres work at Museo Reina Sofia, photo: Roberto Ruiz There’s a lot to consider in Dulce Venganza, Sweet Revenge, Nancy Spector’s exhibition of Felix Gonzalez-Torres at the Reina Sofia in Madrid. But let’s start with one of the most unexpected things first, at least to me: the inclusion of “Untitled” (Portrait of Austrian Airlines), 1993, a commissioned corporate portrait which, uniquely, can be shown as a frieze portrait or a billboard. Quick, guess which one its subject chose in 1993? 3,000 billboards. Comprising an alphabetical list of the cities and the year Austrian Airlines began flying to them, I’d kind of settled on this work as a co-optation of a recognizably artistic graphic strategy for marketing on one side, and a large check-cashing operation on the other. Chopped: “Untitled” (Portrait of Austrian Airlines), 1993 installation, one…