Teresa Margolles: Born 1963 in Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico

Teresa Margolles
Estorbo (Obstruction) II, 2019
Installation consisting of 90 concrete cube and color prints (posters), mounted unframed on the wall. Each cube shows the initials of Venezuelan men who have migrated to Cucutá, Colombia, and work as „Trocheros“ (trail-finder and carrier) at the frontier bridge Simón Bolívar. The t-shirts that belonged to these men, soaked with their sweat, have been given to the artist in an act of exchange and cast in the cubes. Each photograph corresponds to one cube.
Each cube: 15 x 15 x 15 cm (5 ⅞ x 5 ⅞ x 5 ⅞ in.)
Each photograph: 180 x 120 cm (70 ⅞ x 47 ¼ in.)
Unique
(MARGO23677)

EUR 200,000 (without VAT)

Teresa Margolles
La Entrega (The Delivery), 2019
Installation consisting of 1 concrete cube and 1 color print on cotton paper; the color print shows a Venezuelan man who has migrated to Cucutá, Colombia, and works as „Trochero“ (trail-finder and carrier) at the frontier bridge Simón Bolívar. The t-shirt that belonged to the man, soaked with his sweat, was given to the artist in an act of exchange and cast in the cube. The cube shows the man's initials: E Z.
Object: 15 x 15 x 15 cm (5 ⅞ x 5 ⅞ x 5 ⅞ in.)
Photograph: 180 x 120 cm (70 ⅞ x 47 ¼ in.)
Unique
(MARGO25959)

EUR 35,000 (without VAT)

Teresa Margolles
Tela en el desierto (Fabric in the desert), 2018
Installation consisting of one color print and one folded fabric with residues from femicide sites gathered in 2009 in Ciudad Juárez, México
Photograph: 71.4 x 105 cm, framed
Fabric folded: 4 x 60 x 37 cm
Shelf: 5 x 55 x 36 cm
Unique
(MARGO22706)

EUR 40,000 (without VAT)

Teresa Margolles disrupts the safe distance between viewer and conflict by bringing into the exhibition space the remains of disappeared women in the form of fabrics dragged in the desert, in the precise spots where their lifeless bodies where abandoned according to the experts who recovered them. By saving the only remains of these women forgotten by justice, the artist refuses to accept what appears to be the unchangeable, doomed fate of Juárez. By taking this fabric from the ground and elevating it to the sky, the artist creates both a fierce picture of resistance and a poetic image of a relentless landscape, punctuated by the nearby, folded cloth.

Teresa Margolles
Frazada (La Sombra), Blanket (The Shade), 2016
Fabric used to wrap the body of a murdered woman, mounted on a metalic structure, similar to those used by street markets, La Paz, Bolivia
190 x 152 x 152 cm (74.8 x 59.8 x 59.8 in.)
Unique
(MARGO21545)

EUR 40,000 (without VAT)

The sculpture "Frazada (La Sombra)", 2016 is composed of a blanket mounted on a metal structure. Such metal structures are traditionally used as parasols at street markets in La Paz, Bolivia. The fabric that casts the shadow on the floor was recovered by the artist from a morgue in La Paz. It was used to cover the corpse of a female murder victim and is soaked with her blood In her performance at the 2016 SIART Biennial in La Paz, Bolivia and in her solo exhibition at Tenuta dello Scompiglio in Lucca, Italy in 2017. The artist positioned this parasol in different public spaces throughout the cities. It offered shade and shelter to passersby and is also a reminder of the tragic destiny of many women in Bolivia. According to the National Statistics Institute of Bolivia 87% of the women in the county suffered some kind of violence in 2016. The photographic work "Frazada (La Sombra)“, documents the action.

Teresa Margolles
Frazada (La Sombra), Blanket (The Shade), 2017
Color print
Documentation of the action of positioning a blanket from the morgue mounted on a metalic structure in the public space in the city of Lucca, Italia.
169 x 141.6 cm (66.5 x 55.7 in.)
176.5 x 149.5 cm (69.5 x 58.9 in.), framed
Ed. 1/6 (+ 1 AP)
(MARGO21763)

EUR 18,000 (without VAT)

The Blanket (The Shade) consists of a blanket from the morgue of La Paz, Bolivia—once used to cover the body of a murdered woman—mounted on a metal frame and hold by a large stone, typically for street markets across Latin America. Teresa Margolles first installed the piece in a public space as a performance during the 2016 SIART Biennial in La Paz, and later in her solo exhibition at Tenuta dello Scompiglio in Lucca, Italy, 2017. The blanket, salvaged from the morgue, is stained with the blood of a femicide victim. It offers shade to unsuspecting passersby—only revealing its nature over time, provoking discomfort and reflection. Providing both literal shelter and a haunting presence, the work is a reminder of the fate of countless women in Bolivia and beyond. According to Bolivia’s National Statistics Institute, 87% of women in the country have experienced abuse. The title draws attention to the shadow it casts — a dark, ephemeral space that evokes both mourning and resistance. For Margolles, this shadow is not only a symbol of systemic gender violence, but also a fragile membrane of intimacy and protection. The square of shade, fleeting on the pavement, stands as a quiet yet searing trace of loss.

Teresa Margolles

Señalización de lugares donde sucedieron actos violentos en Los Angeles, California, durante el 2016 (Marking of the spots where acts of violence have taken place in Los Angeles), 2016
Color print on paper
Water used for marking the spots where bodies of murder victims had laid in Los Angeles, US
221 x 150 cm (87.0 x 59.1 in.)
227 x 155.5 cm (89.4 x 61.2 in.), framed
Ed. 3/5 (+ 1 AP)
(MARGO21089)

EUR 21,000 (without VAT)

The photographic work "Señalizacíon…“ depicts a grid of 100 plastic bottles, each one inscribed with a location in Los Angeles, a date and the name and age of a person. The photo is related to Margolles’s project for the 2016 LA Public Art Biennial in which she marked with water the location of murders committed in the city of Los Angeles between January 1, 2015 to July 1, 2016. The artist then mixed the water from this cleaning process with cement in order to erect a memorial to the murder victims. The structure was a temporary intervention and was dismantled after the biennial. It consisted of a simple, large concrete roof. It generated shade and offered a place of respite at Echo Park Lake where visitors could rest, meditate, and reflect. The shadow that the structure emitted was an essential part of the work. The magnitude of the structure reflected not only the magnitude of the tragedy, but also the fragility of memory.

East Hollywood
600 North Alexandria Avenue
1-3-2015
Javier Resendiz Jr.
27 year old

Teresa Margolles
Plancha (Hotplate), 2014
Installation, 10 heated steel plates, 1 dripping system and a mix of water extracted from a fabric that was used to clean the site where the body of a person murdered laid on the street at the northern Mexican border.
10 plates: 20 x 60 x 60 cm
1 dripping system: 10 x 2 x 600 cm
Variation 3 of 3 (+ 1 AP)
(MARGO18542)

EUR 100,000 (without VAT)

"Water drips onto a hot steel plate, evaporating immediately with a noticeable hiss, and leaving limescale deposits on the metal. The transformation of water from liquid to steam mirrors the transformation of the human body after death. The process of decomposition, the body's transition from present to absence, is narrated – as in all of Teresa Margolles' works – starting from concrete elements. The water that drips slowly onto the metal acquires another dimension when we discover that it is the water used to wash corpses after autopsies, evaporating and spreading around the room like the hiss it releases. This muted sound thus becomes a trace and transcription of human passing." Frida Carrazato, in: "Frontera", Museion Bozen/Bolzano, 2011.

Teresa Margolles
40 kilómetros (40 kilometers), 2014
Series of 21 color prints
Photographs of small altars placed under trees along the 40 kilometers road between Culiacan and Playa Altata, in Sinaloa, Mexico.
40.5 x 27 cm (15.9 x 10.6 in.)
42.5 x 29 cm (16.7 x 11.4 in.), framed
each, all together: 132 x 215 cm
Ed. 5/6 (+ 1 AP)
(MARGO20754)

EUR 30,000 (without VAT)

In this series of 21 photographs, Teresa Margolles documents small altars placed under trees along the 40 kilometers between Culiacan and Playa Altata, in Sinaloa, Mexico. The altars honor victims of violence that have died along this road, which is controlled by various criminal groups. The photos are displayed in 3 rows of 7, each row depicting a stretch of the road, and each stretch belonging to a drug cartel. This infamous road crosses the northwestern part of Mexico and is defined by various borders, both social and geographical. In these small-format landscape images, Margolles highlights the contrasting symbols of life and death that the trees and altars establish.

Teresa Margolles
Joya (cadena) [Jewel (Necklace)], 2007
10 carat gold with an inlay of 6 pieces of glass from shattered windshields after drug-related crossfire from car-to-car in the streets of Culiacán, Mexico.
26 x 18 cm (10.2 x 7.1 in.)
Unique
(MARGO14611)

EUR 40,000 (without VAT)

Ajuste de cuentas
Settling of accounts
Preliminary technical investigations
Culiacan, Time: 2 PM
From car to car a habitant of the community La Laguna Colorada was riddled while driving a truck on the International Highway 15 in Mexico heading south. It has been confirmed that the attack took place at 8:50 AM on the federal street at the height of one of the yankees residing in the area while he was driving a Dodge Ram 2500 2500, 4x4, of black color. According to the relatives who were driving in another vehicle behind the victim several gunmen on board of a white Nissan Tsuru approached to his car, started shooting and left him heavily wounded on the roadside. Then the gunmen fled. These jewels are made of broken glass fragments, that Teresa Margolles collected from several bodies that entered the morgue after violent drug-related settling-of-scores crimes in 2007 in Sinaloa, Mexico. A local jeweler, specializad in jewels for drug dealers, designed the collection. He worked the glass into pieces of jewelery that are inspired by the sumptuousness of drug lords. Precious stones are replaced here by the broken glass pieces from the corpses.

Teresa Margolles
Recados Póstumos (Cine Estudiante) [Posthumous Notes (Cinema Estudiante)], 2006
Color print
Intervention with a suicide note on the canopy of an abandoned cinema in Guadalajara, Jalisco.
135 x 159 cm (53.1 x 62.6 in.), framed
Ed. 1/5 + 1 AP + 1 EP
(MARGO12339)

EUR 18,000 (without VAT)

For her series of photographs entitled "Recados Posthumos" (Posthumous Messages) Teresa Margolles collected messages, written by people who committed suicide. She then placed these haunting words above the entrance of five abandoned and ruinous movie theatres in Guadalajara, Mexico. On the scoreboard of Cine Estudiante, where the movies are usually announced, it reads „Por la constante represión que recibo de mi familia. 19 años“ („Because of the constant repression I receive from my family. 19 years). The back-breaking feeling of alleged failure was expressed by this adolescent as a desperate last resort measure. Displayed in the facade of a place of entertainment, the message is turned into an urgent announcement, that hints at the failure of a society which compels people to take such a drastic final step. The work transforms into a memorial to ever-present issues of violence, desolation and abandonment.

Teresa Margolles
Sonido de la primera incisión torácica durante la autopsia a una víctima de asesinato (Sonidos de la morgue) [Sound of the first thoracic incision during the autopsy of a murder victim (Sounds of the morgue)], 2006
Sound piece, 66 min., loop
Recording of two thoracotomies to a man and a woman during an autopsy in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Ed. 1/4 (+ 1 AP + 1 EP)
(MARGO12346)

EUR 25,000 (without VAT)

This audio piece belongs to a seminal series of early works by the artist that speak to the brutality of death, social injustice and gender hatred in the context of the Mexican drug war. It records the sound of two thoracotomies that were executed on a man and a woman during an autopsy in the morgue in Guadalajara, Mexico. The sound of the autopsy instruments remains abstract at first and only takes on an eerie quality when we are enlightened about the source of the noise. The artist disrupts the safe distance between the observer and the addressed conflict by bringing into the exhibition space a disturbing auditory impression, which normally takes place far away from society. Through the use of headphones, we experience the process of opening the thorax of the victims in the intimacy of our heads. The lack of visuals allows us to decide how far we want to expose ourselves to our own imagination, which unexpectedly and suddenly unfolds in our mind and threatens the inner eye.

Teresa Margolles

Catafalco (Catafalque), 1997
Adhesion of organic materials (fluids, hair, skin) on plaster
182 x 48 x 42 cm (71.7 x 18.9 x 16.5 in.)
Unique
(MARGO11091)

EUR 70,000 (without VAT)

The hollow form of "Catafalco", a plaster cast of autopsied corpse, speaks of loss. Standing upright, the negative form reveals impressions of the body and its face. They are nothing more than outer skin, though individualised. Seen from a certain distance, the negative form of the face suddenly appears as positive; the dead has come back from oblivion as shadow figure. The hollow contains traces of destroyed life. Hair, particles of skin, etc. have adhered to the plaster in the casting process and, like fingerprints, certify the guineness of the form. Yet the latter nevertheless remain nameless, a kind of negative counterpart to the mummies of famous statesman, laid out in state. "Catafalco" is similar in the employ techniques to carry on the tradition of "true depiction". Like the veil of St. Veronica (vera icon) or the Shroud of Turin, the plaster cast provides us with individual, abstraced "imprints" or dead persons and, as such, evidence of their existence and their suffering.
Klaus Görner/ Udo Kittelmann, "Muerte Sin Fin", 2004