W. M. HUNT, photo collector, curator and director of photography
of New York’s Ricco-Maresca Gallery, was the chairman of
Photographers + Friends United Against AIDS:  Felix Gonzalez-
Torres was this brilliant, 30-something conceptual artist who
had been a part of Group Material, a collective. I think he was
in Act Up. He had a huge, wonderful retrospective at the
Guggenheim. He was also kind of a sexy dog, a handsome fellow,
and people just liked being with him. He died of AIDS-related
complications in 1996, a year after the Guggenheim show.  Felix
was a magician. He would do something as odd as fill the corner
of a museum with wrapped candies. That would be the piece. And
the piece would be bewildering. You’d go, ‘What the hell is that
all about?’ Kids thought they’d landed in heaven. You were
supposed to take the candy. The works were endlessly
replenishable. You were encouraged to touch it and deal with it
directly. It may not have been conventional, but it was engaging
and magical.  One of the pieces for