Day-dreaming of sleep

Félix González-Torres, Untitled (Bed), 1991

I love my bed. Most mornings while on my stupidly long commute, I find myself wishing I was still in it. So while I while away my journey day-dreaming of still being curled up under the duvet, here are some other beds both occupied and empty.

The bed in Félix González-Torres’s photograph is, in a way, simulataneously occupied and empty. The bed looks newly vacated – ready to welcome its occupants back before they have to face the day – but the picture is a memorial to the artist’s partner, Ross Laycock, after his death from AIDS. The crumpled sheet and pillows still bearing the indentations of the heads of those who slept there are both the trace of its occupants and reminder of the bed’s emptiness.The whiteness of the picture gives it a delicate beauty.

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