Teresa Margolles

Teresa Margolles

The work of Mexican artist Teresa Margolles revolves around what is perhaps the last great taboo topic of our time: death. Her approach is even more daring, for she is not interested in folklore and ritual but in the palpable reality of the corpse. "What does a corpse have to go through?" wonders Margolles, who is also a forensic medical assistant and a scholar in the field of communications. Employing a minimalist aesthetic, she transforms extinguished life, rendering it perceptible through artistic intervention, thereby rescuing "her" decedents from anonymous oblivion. This first publication devoted to Margolles' work presents an examination of her place in art history by Gabriela Jauregui, concluding remarks by the Spanish artist Santiago Sierra, and a literary text by the Mexican crime novelist Elmer Mendoza. His short story, written in experimental prose, offers impressions of life in Culiacan, one of the bastions of the narcotics business in Mexico.