Descripción de la Exposición
IN COOPERATION WITH AIR – ARTIST IN RESIDENCE LOWER AUSTRIA
Violent death is the central theme of Teresa Margolles’s work. The Mexican artist frequently uses materials that come from, or have been in contact with, dead human bodies, like blood or corpse washing water. In her pictures, sculptures, installations, performances, videos, and photographs, she explores the brutality of death in the context of the Mexican drug war and of migration, social injustice, and gender hatred.
In the center of the exhibition at the Kunsthalle Krems is the near-hopeless situation of transgender prostitutes in Ciudad Juárez, the city with the highest rate of violent crime in Mexico. Margolles stayed in the city for some time and through a contact named Karla met several locals. For her series Pistas de Baile (2016), she photographed transgender prostitutes posing on the ruins of demolished discotheques and nightclubs, their former places of work. The large-format photos radiate pride and beauty but also a sense of utter forlornness—making a strong statement for those excluded by society.
Another work, an installation entitled Karla, Hilario Reyes Gallegos (2016), addresses the brutal murder of Karla, Margolles’s contact and informant. A large photo portrait of Karla shows a self-confident older transgender prostitute. An audiotaped testimony in which one of her fellow sex workers speaks about Karla’s unsolved murder adds a second level to the work. Finally, the death certificate evidences how society negated the reality of Karla’s transgender identity even after her death: it only shows her (male) birth name, Hilario Reyes Gallegos.
Death in connection with flight and borders is another theme of the exhibition, and it is visualized in a relief work entitled La Gran América (2017) and composed of one-thousand square brick tiles. Each square tile stands for one human who tried to get into the U.S. from Mexico crossing the border river, the Rio Grande, and who lost their lives in the attempt. A memorial for thousands and thousands of nameless migrants, men and women, created out of clay from the Rio Grande that Margolles had baked into tiles. This work is shown in the Central Hall.
Teresa Margolles was born in 1963 in Culiacán, Mexico. She lives and works in Mexico City and has already participated in exhibitions of famed institutions like the Guggenheim Museum, New York (2005), or Tate Modern, London (2012). In 2009, she designed the Mexican pavilion at the Venice Biennale. In 2018, she was nominated for the renowned Hugo Boss Prize. The artist first came to Krems in 2008 on the international AIR – ARTIST IN RESIDENCE Lower Austria exchange program. In 2013, she showed a performance and an installation at the Donaufestival. At this year’s Venice Biennale, works by Margolles were shown in the curated main exhibition in the Arsenale and in the international pavilion in the Giardini. This is now followed by a solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle Krems which is held in cooperation with AIR.
Exposición. 14 nov de 2024 - 08 dic de 2024 / Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía (C3A) / Córdoba, España
Formación. 23 nov de 2024 - 29 nov de 2024 / Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS) / Madrid, España
