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20/3/2003

Teresa Margolles

Kunsthalle Wien Project Space, Wien

The Shroud

An exhibition in cooperation with the Vorarlberger Kunstverein MAGAZIN 4.

Curators: Wolfgang Fetz, Gerald Matt, Lucas Gehrmann

A publication with writings by Klaus Biesenbach and Wolfgang Fetz as well as a conversation between Teresa Margolles and Gerald Matt has been scheduled to appear in time for the exhibition.

Teresa Margolles and the artists' group SEMEFO have been exploring for more than ten years the history of Death in Mexico City, a city that has been "shaken by the increasingly stronger stormwinds of change & until has become the focus of all the problems of a globalized world." (Klaus Biesenbach).

In her installations, and photographic and video works, Teresa Margolles follows up the "life" of corpses through all the rites performed with and on behalf of the dead. She traces the physical tracks of the memory, the power and the social imbalance, which remain visible after the death of a person. For the exhibition in Vienna the artist has been planning an installation entitled "The Shroud." The actual shroud is a piece of material 24 x 24 meters in size, which was used for the temporary storage of unidentified dead bodies in the Mexico City morgue. In Mexico, the bodies of people who have suffered a violent death are required by law to be subjected to an autopsy. The majority of these dead remain unidentified in the process, as their relative frequently cannot afford a funeral and do not therefore undertake an identification. Unidentified corpses will be submitted, as a rule, to medical institutes for dissection. Sometimes up to 15 such dead bodies will be wrapped for interim storage in a large, chemically treated winding sheet, where they often remain for several months.

"The Shroud" is a sheet that has served this purpose and so carries the traces of such a storage. Used in an installation it derives aesthetic qualities, which, when taken together with a knowledge of its original function, create a threatening atmosphere of tension. The installation is complemented by two of the artist's video works. Teresa Margolles, born in Culiacn, Sinaloa, Mexico, lives and works in Mexico City. In 1990 she founded, together with other artists, the group SEMEFO (Servicio Medico Forensico / Forensic Medical Service), which attempts to throw a telling light through its drastic forms of artistic expression on the political and social realities of Mexico. An exhibition in cooperation with the Vorarlberg Kunstverein MAGAZINE 4. Curators: Wolfgang Fetz, Gerald Matt, Lucas Gehrmann A publication with writings by Klaus Biesenbach and Wolfgang Fetz as well as a conversation between Teresa Margolles and Gerald Matt has been scheduled to appear in time for the exhibition

Opening: Thursday, 20 March 2003, 7 pm

Information and photo material: Claudia Bauer, KUNSTHALLE wien, office: Museumsplatz 1, A 1070 Vienna Phone: +43 1 521 89 1222, fax: +43 1 521 89 1220

KUNSTHALLE wien project space karlsplatz Treitlstrasse 2, A 1040 Vienna daily from 1 to 7 pm Infoline +43 1 52189 33

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