Taking and eating a piece of candy from a pile of candy in the corner of the museum gallery doesn’t seem like a big deal until you realize the complicated systems of power and oppression you are metaphorically taking part in. Felix Gonzalez-Torres confronts the participant by creating a situation where one must choose to partake or abstain. This participatory sculpture, Untitled (A Portrait of Ross in LA) is composed of a pile of candy representing Gonzalez-Torres’s partner who died of AIDS. This artwork finds its voice in the ways in which one interacts with it. Gonzalez-Torres places one in the situation where if you participate and take a piece of candy you have become responsible for playing a part in the system of power and oppression that lead to the death of Ross and the leads to the disappearance of the candy pile. By choosing to abstain you simply become a bystander who does nothing while other’s take the candy and the oppressive powers still run its destructive course. One must come to terms with the role they play whether passive or active in the system, and critically think about how one can counter these powers.