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2/12/2010

Teresa Margolles and Matt Stokes

Fridericianum, Kassel

On 3 December solo exhibitions by Teresa Margolles and Matt Stokes will be opened at Kunsthalle Fridericianum. Mexican artist Margolles creates extremely poignant works with deeply emotional and dramatic means. Matt Stokes devotes himself to the phenomenon of underground music as a counter-movement to the mainstream and its ability to spawn subcultures.

Teresa Margolles
Frontera

Using reduced but always drastic means, Teresa Margolles (born in Culiacán, Mexico, in 1963) creates extremely poignant works of art. At first glance, her works often seem to be minimalist in their form. Viewers only discover that they are deeply emotional and dramatic when they become aware of the rigorous realism in the choice of material. Margolles uses substances such as blood, body fat or even water used to wash dead corpses not only symbolically, but also palpably, attacking human beings’ fears of contact in a subtle way. In the last ten years, her art has revolved around the issue of what happens after a person dies and what death leaves behind. The artist deals with the social dimension of the dead body as well as the physical remains after autopsies, and the treatment of this subject as a taboo. In addition – as it has become increasingly apparent in her most recent groups of works – she is interested in personal mourning rituals and social strategies of repression. Margolles work stands in close connection with the everyday realities of her home country Mexico, which has been dominated for years by drug wars between enemy cartels and where thousands of people fall victim to violent crimes every year. Her art can be viewed as an act of solidarity towards those who have died, as a vehement struggle against forgetting. Furthermore, she asks questions about the future of a society whose population seems to be directly affected and traumatised by the consequences of this violence.

After studying art, Teresa Margolles received an additional degree in forensic medicine and, starting in the 1990s, worked in morgues in Mexico City parallel to her artistic pursuits. At the morgues, she was mainly confronted with lower-class victims of violence whose families could not afford a burial, and so the victims were buried in anonymous mass graves. The artist’s professed aim is to give these people, who are ignored not only during their lifetime but even in death, a voice. She assesses the state of a society based on the state of its dead. Her works suggest that not even death eradicates social inequalities. For Margolles, the autopsy room serves as a pool of sources, both regarding the histories and fates that she encounters there and explores, and the physical material she finds there and uses for her artistic work. She expresses both relentless realism and deep sensitivity in works such as Entierro (1999), for which she cast the corpse of a stillborn foetus in a concrete block. In Mexico, as in many countries, it is not customary to bury stillborn foetuses; instead the hospital disposes of them. While this smooth cube may look like a minimalist sculpture on the outside, when one knows that a foetus is buried inside it takes on an emotional aura that is deeply touching. 127 cuerpos (2006), consisting of knotted-together threads extending through the exhibition room, works in a similar way. It is only when the viewer finds out that the threads are the remains of autopsy seams that he or she realises the slight discolorations of this delicate, visually reduced work might stem from bodily fluids of dead people.

Under the title Frontera, Margolles is presenting new and pre-existing works made of diverse materials at Kunsthalle Fridericianum. While these works reflect the frightening extent to which the drug war is influencing Mexican society, they also engage with the general taboo on death and violence. Margolles confronts visitors directly with death by having water used for washing corpses taken from a Mexican autopsy room drip on to a hot steel plate in the exhibition space, thus making death perceptible both olfactorily and atmospherically. In addition, she is putting up two walls in the Kassel exhibition which she has had removed from Mexican cities and replaced with new walls. The man-high concrete-block walls are witnesses of daily violence: they display bullet holes resulting from shoot-outs that have had a lasting impact on cities such as Ciudad Juárez, where the drug war is raging with particular vehemence. With the title Frontera (frontier), Teresa Margolles alludes to the limits of what a city can endure. She shows places with no future, in which even young people grasp the futility of their situation, as one of her film works oppressively documents. Margolles also shows relics of victims of criminal violence, presenting glass display cabinets with jewellery of shot police officers, government officials, passers-by and tourists. While the golden watches, earrings, chains and bracelets are draped as though on display in a jewellery store, as vanitas symbols the valuables directly refer to the sudden, unexpected deaths of these people. Additional works, some of which are being created right at the Fridericianum, supplement Frontera, making it a synthesis of works – some more documentary, some very emotional – of the explosive realities of Mexico.

The exhibition is realised in collaboration with Museion, Bolzano and will be on view from 27 May to 21 August 2011 at the Museion.

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Matt Stokes
No Place Else Better Than Here

In his works, many of which are film or event-based, the British artist Matt Stokes (born in Penzance, England, in 1973) deals with subcultures. In meticulous research, he explores the origins of music scenes and groups, investigating the local development of, say, the folk movement in Camden and Newcastle, Northern Soul in Dundee, and punk rock in Austin, Texas. Stokes is interested in the way in which music creates a collective feeling, serving as a catalyst for certain groups to form, and shaping and influencing people’s lives and identities. He immerses himself in specific contexts and gets involved with the community of a subculture, and in this way manages to convey the characteristics of these scenes in an artistic manner which is not only documentary, but also personal, celebratory and expressive. From his long-term research, in which he collects impressions, stories, and materials, he creates films, installations, musical works and events which develop their own conceptual and aesthetic life.

In terms of context, many of Stokes’ works often closely relate to the musical history of the places for which he conceives an exhibition. In 2003, the artist initiated the ongoing project Real Arcadia, which looks back at 1980s and 90s British rave culture and in particular ‘cave raves’ which took place in caves in the English countryside. For the work Stokes established close contact with the original rave organisers and party-goers, collected, related TV reports and objects such as mix-tapes, records, photographs, posters, flyers and T-shirts, on the basis of which he not only archived the history of this culture, but also revived it. The film Long After Tonight (2005) engages with Northern Soul, a British music phenomena which emerged in northern England and Scotland at the end of the 1960s and had a decisive impact on people’s lifestyles, which continues to this day. During an artist’s residency in Austin, Texas, Matt Stokes created the work these are the days (2008) for Arthouse, in which he explored the punk, post-punk and DIY movements in Austin. Since the 1970s, these alternative music scenes have represented a kind of anti-attitude to the mainstream in Austin, developing into influential subcultures in the city. The film work The Gainsborough Packet (2008-09) emerged within the framework of a solo exhibition at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead and at the 176 in London. Reminiscent of the music video format and in the style of costume dramas and films, The Gainsborough Packet focuses on the move toward industrialisation in the mid 19th century and to the importance of music and song in the daily lives of the young urbanised population.

With his Kassel exhibition Matt Stokes devotes himself to the lasting effect of underground music as a counter-culture to the mainstream and its ability to spawn scenes which greatly influence people’s opinions and lifestyles, issues which run through Stokes' entire oeuvre. Against this background, he will combine the film The Gainsborough Packet with sculptural and object works emerging from the cultural context of rave music, and with a large film installation Cantata Profana which Stokes is producing specifically for his show in Kassel. Installed in a semicircle which will dominate the main wing of the Fridericianum and recall ancient amphitheatre architecture, this new film work will take a penetrating look at hardcore, grindcore and death metal music cultures that played an influential role in Kassel’s music scenes from the late 1980s to today. For this project, Stokes selected six extreme metal vocalists, one from Kassel and the others from the UK, USA, Norway and Netherlands. Using traditional composition techniques, Stokes combines their typical singing, which is usually devoid of lyrics. The auditive aspect, the singers’ movements and body postures, as well as the recording location that form the background for the film contributes to the special atmosphere of this unique choral work.

Selected Events

9.12. – 12.12.2010, 8 p.m.
Theater zwischen den Künsten: Parzival. Ein Szenarium von Tankred Dorst.
Stage direction: Nils-Arne Kässens, actress: Julia Hansen. With a media installation by Joel Baumann. A cooperation between Kunsthochschule Kassel, Staatstheater Kassel and Kunsthalle Fridericianum.

26.01.2011, 6 p.m.
InsideOut Talk
Tobias Rapp (music editor of the magazine “Der Spiegel” and author of the book “Lost and Sound: Berlin, Techno und der Easyjetset”) talks about music and the underground in connection with Matt Stokes’ exhibition.

9.02.2011, 6 p.m.
InsideOut Talk
Prof. Thomas Macho (director of the cultural studies programme at Humboldt University in Berlin and editor of the publication “Die neue Sichtbarkeit des Todes”) talks about Teresa Margolles’ art.

11.02.2011, 9 p.m.
Organ concert Sacred Selections
Within the framework of the exhibition Matt Stokes will initiate a concert linking two different musical genres in an unusual way. On a classical church organ, London-based organist Paul Ayres will play pieces from the happy hardcore genre, a style which combines elements of trance and hardcore and which has a danceable and emphatically cheerful sound, in contrast to classical organ pieces. The concert will take place on Friday, 11 February 2011 at St. Martin’s Church in Kassel.

The complete programme of events can be found on the website.

Image: Teresa Margolles, El testigo, 2010. Courtesy and photo: the artist

Press contact:
Christine Messerschmidt Communication Tel. +49 561 7072786 Fax +49 561 7072775 messerschmidt@fridericianum-kassel.de

Opening of the exhibitions on Friday 3 December 2010 at 7 p.m.

Kunsthalle Fridericianum
Friedrichsplatz 18 D-34117 Kassel
Opening hours: Wednesday to Sunday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Kunsthalle Fridericianum will be closed on 24, 25 and 31 December 2010 and 1 January 2011
Admissions
normal: 5 €
reduced: 3 €
Groups: 3 € per person
children up to the age of 12 have free access

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