MoMA PS1 Surveys Teresa Margolles's Art of Violence
The survey exhibition gathers installations from Mexican artist Teresa Margolles's research on violence, including earlier and new work made in the United States.
Updated on Nov. 5, 2026 in Fine Art
MoMA PS1 presents "Teresa Margolles: En el lugar de los hechos" (At the Scene), a survey of the Mexican artist's installations. The exhibition gathers work from her 2010s research in northern Mexico along with earlier and new work made in the United States.
Why it matters
Margolles has worked with traces of violence for three decades, drawing on her time as a forensic technician in a Mexico City morgue in the 1990s. The survey brings her practice to a New York City audience through a major institutional presentation.
The survey spans three decades of Margolles's practice, with a 2016 Dallas project covering 111 murder sites. The source does not state the number of works in the show or its closing date.
The players
Teresa Margolles
Teresa Margolles is a Mexican multidisciplinary artist known for making art from materials tied to death and violence, including residue from the processing of crime victims' bodies.
MoMA PS1
MoMA PS1 is the contemporary art institution in Long Island City, Queens, affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art, known for presenting experimental and survey exhibitions.
The details
Margolles's 2003 installation "Aire" vaporized water used to wash cadavers before autopsy into a museum gallery. In late 2016 she visited Dallas, where a team sponged a rectangle on the pavement at each of 111 murder sites, drawing water from one bucket and draining it into another after each passage.
Timeline
- 1990s: Margolles works as a forensic technician in a Mexico City morgue.
- 2003: The "Aire" installation is shown in a museum gallery.
- 2010s: Margolles conducts research in northern Mexico.
- Late 2016: The Dallas ritual is performed at 111 sites.
Culture Shift
The survey extends Margolles's 2003 "Aire" installation, which brought morgue-derived material into a museum gallery, into new work made in the United States. It places her ongoing treatment of violence within the institutional context of a New York museum.
The survey is on view at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens, giving New York City visitors in-person access to Margolles's installations. The source does not state admission details or the exhibition's closing date.
The takeaway
Margolles's work shows how the material traces of violence, such as the water used on bodies and the rubble left after crimes, can be turned into art that asks viewers to confront what remains after it.
Further reading
Explore more Fine Art coverage for context on exhibitions like this one.
Source note: This article includes information reported by The New York Times.
