• TERESA MARGOLLES
    Artist Residency
  • For over twenty-five years, Teresa Margolles (b. 1963, Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico) has investigated the social and aesthetic dimensions of conflict,...

    TERESA MARGOLLES Scarlett, Pista de baile del club 'La Cruda' (Scarlett, dance floor from the club 'La Cruda'), 2016 Pigmented inkjet print 125 x 185 cm

    For over twenty-five years, Teresa Margolles (b. 1963, Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico) has investigated the social and aesthetic dimensions of conflict, creating sculptural installations, photographs, films, and performances imbued with material traces of trauma. Since the introduction of NAFTA in the 1990s, Margolles has worked closely with at-risk communities in border cities in Mexico and Latin America, particularly Ciudad Juárez, whose economic proximity to the U.S. has ushered in decades of conflict due to organized crime.

     

    In the first three months of 2024 we have converted our library space to an artist studio for Margolles to produce her work for her landmark Fourth Plinth Commission to be unveiled in Trafalgar Square in 2024.


    This commission is in collaboration with James Cohan Gallery in New York and supported by the white wall company.

  • 850 Improntas (850 Imprints)
    at the Fourth Plinth

  • For the Fourth Plinth, Teresa Margolles will install an ephemeral work in Trafalgar Square entitled 850 Improntas, made with plaster cast molds of the faces of 850 transgender people. The molds will be created in collaboration with trans people living in London and around the world, by applying plaster directly onto each individual’s face. The resulting object is both a visual record of their respective features and, imbued with hair and skin cells, a material infusion of their physicality.

     

     

  • Arranged in a striking array on all sides of the plinth, inspired by brutalist early prehispanic reliefs like Tzompantli, the...

    TERESA MARGOLLES 850 Improntas [MAQUETTE], 2021 Maquette for Fourth Plinth Commission Shortlist, Trafalgar Square, London, England Plaster, metal framework, MDF plinth replica 80 x 101 x 74 cm

    Arranged in a striking array on all sides of the plinth, inspired by brutalist early prehispanic reliefs like Tzompantli, the installation will serve as a collective statement against transfemenicide. Margolles emphasizes, "This tzompantli is an exercise in trust, and a collective work," urging viewers to recognize and address the prevalent violence faced by transgender individuals.

     

    The weather in London will be an integral part of the narrative, as the rainy and humid climate accelerates the inevitable deterioration of the artwork. As the plaster components disintegrate, they will transform into an anti-monument, dripping into residual material on the plinth and steps below. Margolles' intentional choice challenges normative protocol within public space, demanding attention and accountability.

     

    In a poignant commentary on freedom and human rights, 850 Improntas will invite viewers to witness the visible decay of these indexes, symbolizing the lives of marginalized individuals often overlooked. The deliberate degeneration becomes an undeniable statement within the political context of the site, urging contemplation and action on the issues at hand.

     

     

  • ABOUT THE ARTIST
    Image Credit: Rafael Burillo

    ABOUT THE ARTIST

    Trained as a forensic pathologist, Teresa Margolles was employed in the early 1990’s as a mortician in Mexico City. Her work during that time, which she produced as a member of the artist collective SEMEFO and also independently, stemmed from her proximity to nameless victims of drugtrafficking violence whose unidentifiable bodies passed in numbers through the morgue, largely regarded as “collateral damage.”

     

    Maintaining that there is much to be learned about society from the unseen treatment of cadavers within institutional margins, during this period Margolles created public performances, sculptural objects, and photographic series making the “life of the corpse” radically visible in public space. Branching out from the context of Mexico to other sites of conflict in Latin America and overseas, her strategy continues to expose the social and economic structures that enable such atrocities and exclude them from the social imaginary.

     

    Margolles engages in fieldwork-driven artmaking in the streets of border cities in northern Mexico, such as Ciudad Juárez, whose location in economic relationship to the United States has ushered in decades of conflict due to organized crime. Working closely with communities who are precluded from access to systems of social care, Margolles explores the relationship between violence and marginality, especially in light of gender.

     

    Her methodical research develops into object-based interventions: photographs of trans sex workers, many of whom are now dead, standing in the ruins of demolished nightclubs where they once worked; or posters with the faces of missing women affixed to glass panels that rattle to the sound of a train carrying manufactured goods from Juárez to El Paso. Exhibited internationally, her works underscore the influences of global trade and economic policy on conflict in Latin America.

     

    Past Exhibitions