iMoMA PS1 · Long Island City, Queens
Teresa Margolles
Trained as a forensic pathologist and photographer, Margolles examines transnational violence, with particular attention to the US-Mexico border, through work that traces disappearances, femicides and displacement and rethinks the memorial.
More in New York
You can walk into one room and straight back out without noticing anything. Two humidifiers are moistening the air with water collected from sites of violence around New York, and Hyperallergic's Alex Santana noted the room could pass for a maintenance area of the museum.
Margolles trained as a forensic pathologist, and this is her first large-scale US museum show: three decades of sculpture, photography and video across PS1's third-floor galleries, plus a new commission. The centrepiece, La promesa, is a barrier of rubble from a house a family abandoned in Ciudad Juárez. A 296-minute video follows volunteers scrubbing shooting sites across Dallas, with each victim's name and address on screen.
Santana describes her approach as "unsparing", and the subject throughout is border violence, disappearances and femicides. Entry is free, and La promesa is activated daily at 3pm. A companion piece, Aproximación al lugar de los hechos, drips water onto heated steel plates in Gallery 212 at MoMA in Manhattan.
Look for
La promesa (2012)
Tons of rubble from a house a family abandoned in Ciudad Juárez, built into a monumental barrier that the museum activates daily at 3pm.
Aire (2003)
Two humidifiers fill a room with vapour from water collected at sites of violence in New York.
El agua de la ciudad, Dallas (2016)
In a 296-minute video, volunteers scrub the sites of shootings across Dallas, each scene captioned with the victim's name, age and address.
La nieve (2015)
A man shovels snow at the Staten Island memorial to Eric Garner, who was killed by police in 2014.
Receipt (2020)
A Walmart receipt for ammunition, enlarged to poster size and stacked so you can take a copy with you.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Out-Of-Town Guests
- Rainy Days
Skip if
You want art as respite: every work here is made from, or about, sites of killing.
Also at MoMA PS1
On now nearby
Image credits
5
- Teresa MargollesCourtesy MoMA PS1. Photo: Steven Paneccasio
- Anna Maria Maiolino. ANNA—And the Infinite LineCourtesy of Hauser & Wirth
- Common SenseCourtesy of Brooklyn Museum
- Luminous ColorCourtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum
- MoMA PS1Sashimi-b, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0