Teresa Margolles and the Violence We Breathe
Her MoMA PS1 exhibition raises the question: What exactly does formal restraint accomplish in an age of violent excess?
Teresa Margolles, a Mexican artist born in Culiacán and residing in Mexico City, explores themes of violence and its impact on society through her work. Her first major museum exhibition in the United States, "En el lugar de los hechos" (At the Scene), was exhibited at both MoMA PS1 and the Museum of Modern Art. The collection showcases over 30 years of Margolles' artwork, addressing the heightened violence at sites along the US-Mexico border, particularly in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, Texas.
The exhibition's first room at MoMA PS1 is characterized by absence, repetition, and a sense of futility. A large wall displays "El agua de la ciudad, Dallas" (The Water of the City, Dallas) (2016), a video compilation of people meticulously cleaning the ground at various locations across Dallas where someone has been shot. Each scene begins with a title card displaying the victim's name, age, date of death, and address.
The video, 296 minutes long, feels endless, emphasizing the vastness of the bloodshed and its senselessness. One title card notes, "victim shot while accidentally trying to enter the wrong apartment."
Another video, "La nieve (The Snow)" (2015), features a man on Staten Island shoveling snow in front of the memorial for Eric Garner, who was killed by police in 2014. Both videos involve a small area of surface being cleaned or shovelled, termed "significaciones" or "signalizations" by the artist. The rest of the landscape appears chaotic and uncontrolled, reflecting the unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of violence.
This contrasts with Margolles' other installation, "Aire (Air)" (2003), where two humidifiers release water collected from sites of violence in New York City into a room through vents. This more subdued piece follows the well-known installation "Vaporization" (2001), which filled a room with vaporized water from morgues, originally shown at MoMA PS1 in 2002.
Curator Inés Katzenstein noted during the press preview, "we don't need the beauty of the steam anymore" as we all continue to breathe it daily.
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