PRESS PREVIEW Tuesday, March 27th, 12:00
GRAND OPENING Tuesday, March 27th, 7:00 p.m. (upon invitation)
PERFORMANCE Friday, April 13th, 7:30 p.m. on the occasion of miart and Art Week
ART WEEK SPECIAL from 10-14 April open from 9:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m. with discounted admission tickets from7:00 p.m. + guided tours on April 12th at 7:00 p.m. and April 15th at 6:00 p.m. with curator

From 28 March until 20 May 2018 PAC Pavilion of Contemporary Art Milan presents the solo exhibition ofTeresa Margolles, Mexican artist born in Culiacán (Sinaloa) in 1963, who presently works and lives between
Mexico City and Madrid. The art of Teresa Margolles, being particularly prone to crude realism, bears witness tothe complexities of contemporary society. A society that is weakened by the alarming proportions of organizedcrime that is tearing the world apart as a whole and especially Mexico, which is considered one of the mostdangerous countries on earth.
Teresa Margolles was granted the 2012 Prince Claus Award and represented Mexico during the 53rd Venice
Biennale held in 2009. Her works have been exhibited in many international museums, institutions andfoundations, including Dallas Biennale (2017), Bolivia Biennale (2016), Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst inZurich (2014), Dos de Mayo Arts Centre in Madrid (2014), Modern Art Museum in Mexico City (2011), Museion inBolzano (2011), Kunsthalle Fridericianum in Kassel (2010) and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2010).
Promoted by the Culture Department of the City of Milan and produced by PAC together with the Silvana
Editoriale publishing company, the exhibition is curated by Diego Sileo and represents one of the four researchpaths of the Pavilion of Contemporary Art. Its protagonists are resounding figures in the international artsetting, in view of the weeks in which Milan will turn into an international showcase thanks to miart and theMilan Furniture Fair – the same that will be bringing Anna Maria Maiolino to PAC in 2019.
In fact, on the occasion of miart and Art Week, on Friday, April 13th the artist will be presenting a tribute
performance dedicated to Karla, a transsexual prostitute who was murdered in Ciudad Juárez (Mexico) in 2016.
A strong statement, one that will be leaving an open wound on PAC walls and will be played by Sonja Victoria
Vera Bohórquez, a transgender woman who works as a prostitute in Zurich.
Moreover, for the entire week from 10 to 14 April, PAC will be open until 10:30 p.m., with discounted admission

tickets at € 4 from 7:00 p.m. and two free guided tours: on Thursday, March 12th at 7:00 p.m. and on Sunday,
March 15th at 6:00 p.m. with the curator of the exhibition.
“During Art Week, the week that Milan dedicates to contemporary art with many events being scheduled allover the city, Teresa Margolles will be presenting a performance tribute at the PAC dedicated to one of thevictims of those stories of pain and death witnessed in her works”, according to Filippo Del Corno, Councillor
for the Department of Culture. “Attention towards the language of performing arts is in fact one of the PAC
prerogatives, which is more and more attentive towards grasping the trends of international art production. And
Teresa Margolles has become a well-known exponent of this art, the world over”.
The fourteen installations by Margolles on display at PAC feature a minimalist yet high-impact style that isalmost overpowering at the conceptual level. They explore thorny issues such as death, social injustice, gender
hatred, marginalization and corruption, leading to constant tension between horror and beauty.
Originally trained in Forensic Medicine, Teresa Margolles worked with the SEMEFO (Servicio Médico Forense)
artist’s collective for ten years; it was founded in Mexico City in 1990, denouncing systematic violence incontemporary society. Thanks to the artist’s in-depth studies inherent to the dynamics triggered by violence
and the consequences that fear has produced in society, she has experienced in the first person what the war
against drug trafficking has caused to the city and its inhabitants: the destruction of its urban, architectural andsocial fabric.
Traces of these violent scenarios become narration in her art. The artist collects the last elements of life –objects, material, fragments of buildings and bodily fluids – in morgues or on the streets. She takes possessionof them and transports them into exhibition spaces.
When facing one of the works by Teresa Margolles, you have the feeling of witnessing a game of brutalstrengths, certainly not invisible ones, causing death and pain, shattering bodies and bonds (the samemangled bodies evoked by the work called 57 cuerpos, 2010), but also producing new social relations and new
metaphors of power. The artist’s intention is to explore violence, in the sense of “political act”; but even theindividual and social effects of many contemporary horrors, such as the tragic and constant disappearanceof women in various Mexican cities – including the presently well-known Ciudad Juárez – narrated in the work
entitled La búsqueda (aka “The Search”, 2014) presented in full on PAC premises for the first time in Italy.

The boundless quantity of products of violence described by the Mexican artist – pain, deaths, mutilatedbodies, cruelty, impunity, terror, hatred – converts her research into an actual challenge. The representation ofdeath, in a more direct key as in Papeles (2003) or in a more metaphorical key as in Vaporización (2002-2018)
installed in its new version on PAC premises, constitutes a sombre theme. Drawing close to them necessitatessolid fortitude, preparation in resisting the seductions as much as resisting the revulsions of a theme sodifferent from the more customary ones of artistic reflections. Often one is dominated by an impulse to backaway in front of experiences that are unthinkable, to say the least, such as those reported on a daily basis by
the Mexican PM (2012) newspaper whose front page flanks sex-oriented advertisements with the images ofviolent deaths.
The dramatic nature of Margolles’s works besieges and overwhelms viewers with the crudeness of theirmeanings and images, but they are also fascinated by luxurious and precious jewels (Joyas, 2007) of macabre
contents.
Referring to these aspects, Margolles work may be defined as “research at the limits” since violence constantly
invades her moral and mental space. In fact, her narration causes a metamorphosis in those who confront
themselves with her works, obliging them into assuming the difficult and painful role as witnesses. Violence
produces, not only in those who are subjected to it, a particular disjunction effect between seeing and knowing.
The burden alluded to is not only that deriving from witnessing inhuman and unspeakable events, or thatof ethical commitment that envisages a duty for the artist to remember along with the victims, but also thatoriginated from direct awareness that transforms someone who hears into someone who sees. Precisely for thisreason, works by Margolles challenge usual cognitive strategies, generating a disquieting proximity between
listening, witnessing and experiencing; and this blend of emotions is communicated by a series of works drawn
from the Pistas de baile project (2016), in which the artist gives voice to a group of transsexuals denouncing
abuse and oppression.
As is customary, PAC is organizing a series of didactic activities with the aim of approaching, involving andraising the awareness of audiences towards the themes involved in the artist’s work: free guided tours for thepublic, also envisaging special guests, on Thursday from 7:00 p.m. (with discounted admission tickets at €4) and Sunday at 6:00 p.m. with workshops and meetings. The complete schedule may be consulted on theWebsite.
A free exhibition guide will be accompanying visitors through the works, curated by Francesca Guerisoli,
Professor of Art and Architecture and Photography Languages from the Milan-Bicocca University that for sometime has been involved in the relationship of art with the social and political dimension. The guide analyzes theworks on display, providing visitors with an indispensible tool, with in-depth analysis of the theme of feminicide,confrontations made between Italy and Mexico on the subject of gender violence data.
The exhibition has been established with the support of TOD’S, sponsor of PAC exhibition activities, with thecontribution of Alcantara and Cairo Editore, with the support of Vulcano.
The catalogue is published by Silvana Editoriale, containing new texts by the curator and by: Tatiana Abellán,Ferran Barenblit, Emanuela Borzacchiello, Mario Canal, Oscar Gardea Duarte, Francesca Guerisoli, Raphael
Gygax, Antoine Henry-Jonqueres, Micky Marxuach, Melissa Martin, Angel Moya Garcia, Gilbert Vicario, EugenioViola.
PROJECT ROOM — on the occasion of the exhibition and within its Project Room, PAC will be hosting a focus
on the video work entitled Mum, I’m sorry (2017) by Martina Melilli and curated by Chiara Agnello, a project
by Careof and Sky Academy, in collaboration with Sky Arte HD and in partnership with Museo del Novecentoin support of the Italian art scene. The artwork, winner of the ArteVisione 2017 award and close to the art ofTeresa Margolles for its themes and references, will also be prompting two workshops on PAC premises, open
to the public between 5-19 April, concentrating on the value of objects and their narrative power, establishedsubsequent to a guided tour to the YA BASTA HIJOS DE PUTA exhibition.
LINK CONTENTS PRESS FILE AND IMAGES https://goo.gl/AX1Zvd
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