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Teresa Margolles’s exhibition “En el lugar de los hechos (At the Scene)” at MoMA PS1 and the Museum of Modern Art presents more than 30 years of her work on violence and its traces. A Hyperallergic review describes installations and videos that connect sites of death in cities including Dallas and New York to questions about memory, control and public space.
MoMA PS1 and the Museum of Modern Art are presenting “En el lugar de los hechos (At the Scene),” a large-scale exhibition surveying more than 30 years of work by artist Teresa Margolles. The show examines violence and its traces through video, installation and collected materials, focusing in part on sites along the U.S.-Mexico border and in other cities.
A Hyperallergic review describes the exhibition as Margolles’s first large-scale museum exhibition in the United States. Born in Culiacán and based in Mexico City, Margolles has made work addressing heightened violence around Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, Texas. The review says the exhibition also connects those subjects with other places marked by brutality.
At MoMA PS1, “El agua de la ciudad, Dallas (The Water of the City, Dallas)” (2016) is a 296-minute video showing people methodically cleaning sites around Dallas where someone was shot. Title cards identify victims by name, age, date of death and address. Another video, “La nieve (The Snow)” (2015), shows a man clearing snow outside an altar memorializing Eric Garner, who was killed by police in 2014.
The exhibition also includes “Aire (Air)” (2003), an installation in which humidifiers release water collected from sites of violence in New York City into a room behind vents. It follows “Vaporization” (2001), an earlier work using vaporized water collected from morgues. The review notes that these pieces bring the material traces of violence into spaces visitors occupy.
How the Works Mark Public Space
The videos focus attention on small, bounded areas of streets where violence occurred. The reviewer describes cleaning and shoveling in these works as actions Margolles calls “signalizations”: gestures that mark a place while leaving the broader surroundings visibly uncontrolled. That contrast frames questions about how communities remember deaths and how public spaces absorb their traces.
The humidifier installations make the subject less visibly direct. Inés Katzenstein, one of the curators, said the exhibition no longer needs the beauty of steam to convey its point, because people continue to breathe the air around them. The works’ use of water and air makes the relationship between violence and everyday environments a central part of the show.
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From Morgue Water to City Streets
Margolles’s work has repeatedly used materials and actions associated with sites of death. “Vaporization,” first shown at MoMA PS1 in 2002, filled a room with vaporized water collected from morgues. “Aire” returns to that approach with water gathered from New York locations connected to violence, while “El agua de la ciudad, Dallas” documents the cleaning of shooting sites.
The exhibition’s title, translated as “At the Scene,” reflects its attention to specific locations and their aftermath. The works presented in the review range from a long video built around individual victims’ details to installations that disperse collected water into gallery air.
““We don’t need the beauty of the steam anymore.””
— Inés Katzenstein, exhibition curator
Exhibition Dates and Scope
The supplied report does not state the exhibition’s opening or closing dates, or explain how works are divided between MoMA PS1 and the Museum of Modern Art. It also does not provide attendance figures or statements from the museums about the exhibition’s broader aims. The review presents an interpretation of the works; it does not establish a single intended meaning for them.
Visitors Encounter the Full Survey
The exhibition’s next public milestone is its ongoing presentation at MoMA PS1 and the Museum of Modern Art, though the source material does not give dates or programming details. Visitors can encounter works spanning more than three decades, including the long Dallas video and installations using water collected from sites associated with violence.
Key Questions
What is “En el lugar de los hechos (At the Scene)”?
It is a large-scale exhibition at MoMA PS1 and the Museum of Modern Art surveying more than 30 years of Teresa Margolles’s work.
What does the Dallas video show?
“El agua de la ciudad, Dallas” is a 296-minute video of people cleaning locations where someone was shot. Title cards provide victims’ names, ages, death dates and addresses.
Who was Eric Garner?
Garner was killed by police in 2014. Margolles’s “La nieve” shows a man shoveling snow outside an altar memorializing him, according to the review.
What materials appear in Margolles’s installations?
“Aire” uses water collected from sites of violence in New York City, released into a gallery room by humidifiers. “Vaporization” used water collected from morgues.
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