Teresa Margolles at Mexico Pavilion

Teresa Margolles' (Culiacán, Mexico) installation "What Else Could We Talk About?" confronted the recent spike in violence in Mexico. In 2008, more than 5,000 people were killed due to violent clashes and executions among criminal gangs, and in operations of the security forces, which is nearly double 2007's statistics. Margolles deals a lot with human remains in her work, and is a founding member of the group Servicio Médico Forense/Forensic Medical Services.

In this installation, she hung fabric soaked in blood and dirt taken from the sites of these executions. One long stretch of hanging canvas, also soaked in blood and dirt, is sprayed with water every 5 seconds (or that's what the people working there told me) which makes the matter slowly drip down into the metal trough below.

For me, the most powerful part of the pavilion was the performance that happened everyday at 4:00. A bucket and mop was in 3 adjoining rooms full of water, dirt, and blood. A man (who looked like he could be from Culiacán) mopped each of the rooms, layering the marble floors with the material traces and residues of the assassinations.





She is speaking on July 9th at MOMA...wish I could be there to see it. If you're in the NYC area, please go and tell me how it was.