Teresa Margolles
Estorbo
March - May 2019
MAMBO - Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá, Colombia
Estorbo [Obstruction] is the first institutional solo exhibition in Colombia of the Mexican-born, Madrid-based and internationally renowned artist Teresa Margolles.
Since the nineties, Margolles’ uncomfortable work has dealt with the social causes and consequences of violence, injustice and death. Her research started in her home country, where she analyzed the impact of the drug war on Mexican society, before later expanding to different places across the world.
Working across installation, sculpture, photography, video and performance, over the years Margolles has developed a unique and restrained language, which combines a seemingly minimalist approach with the appropriation and displacement of traces – including objects, materials and bodily fluids – from the places where traumatic events occurred to the exhibition space.
Estorbo comprises a new body of works, including a performance that operates as an expanding modular work, and an urban project especially conceived by Margolles for this particular exhibition, which tackles the dramatic diaspora taking place at the border between Venezuela and Colombia: one of the largest mass migrations in Latin American history.
The provocative title of this project draws on the word “estorbo”, which is often used in prejudice against immigrants.
