This will be neither

This will be neither the first time a late artist represents the U.S. in Venice, nor is it the first time that Gonzalez-Torres was nominated. In 1982 Robert Smithson was our representative, and in 1994 a team of curators (including MOCA's Ann Goldstein) proposed FG-T.

So what will be on view in Venice? Directly from Nancy Spector's proposal (with some edits for the sake of length):

• [A] never-before-realized work in the entrance courtyard of the Pavilion: two adjoining reflecting pools that form a figure eight, the sign of infinity, as both a silent mirror on our collective culture and a beacon of hope.
• Untitled (America), 1994/95, the artist’s largest light string (comprising 12 illuminated strands) will grace the round entrance hall of the Pavilion. (It may also be partially installed outside.)
• In the two rooms flanking the rotunda, there will be, on the left, the large paper stack Untitled (Republican Years), 1992, and, on the right, Untitled (Natural History), 1990, a suite of twelve black and white, framed photographs that documents the inventory of idealized (male) citizens inscribed on the memorial to Theodore Roosevelt at the Museum of Natural History in New York City.
• These images will surround two paper stacks from 1989 that bear the inscriptions "Memorial Day Weekend" and "Veterans Day Sale," respectively. They are both early examples of the artist’s attempt to create a new kind of public monument, one that would remain mutable and open to interpretation.
• A large carpet of clear, cellophane-wrapped licorice candies, the Gugg's own Untitled (Public Opinion), 1991;
• An indoor billboard of a lone bird soaring through an open sky (the last work Gonzalez-Torres completed); It will be illuminated by the single light string, Untitled (Leaves of Grass), 1993. 

If ever we needed further proof that biennials are over (beyond the abundant evidence on view at 945 Madison, of course), the selection of Felix Gonzalez-Torres to represent the United States in Venice in 2007 should pretty much cinch it. Why bother with living artists