Teresa MargollesYou fall in line or they put you in line

The BPS22 is hosting Teresa Margolles' first solo exhibition in Belgium. The Mexican artist built her work in response to the violence ravaging her country and it reflects the social reality underlying it.

In 2007, Teresa Margolles produced the work Decálogo. In the Old Testament, the Decalogue refers to the Ten Commandments engraved "with God's finger" in stone. Teresa Margolles' is composed of ten messages left by drug traffickers after a murder.
You fall in line or they put you in line is the 8th commandment of this Decálogo. Engraved on the largest wall in the Museum, it evokes the Mexico of today where the law is dictated by organized gangs, but it also hints at other forms of subjugation, such as being subjected to the laws of the market. As the title of the exhibition, this threat reverberates throughout the exhibits on display as a warning, but it also questions the different forms of submission and resistance.

The first part of the exhibition bears witness to the violence - physical, economic, psychological - suffered by women, while highlighting the various ways in which they resist it. Charleroi is central to the new exhibits of the second part of the exhibition. Teresa Margolles is captured by the landscape of industrial remains, buildings and businesses that have been abandoned or are undergoing demolition. She has designed pieces that reflect both the city's economic decline and its ongoing transformation, which is also producing its share of marginalised individuals. She has thus worked collaboratively with people she has met in the street. By featuring their faces and their words in the Museum, she seeks to restore their dignity and fights the normalisation of social exclusion.

Curator: Nancy Casielles

Exhibition: 28.09.2019 > 05.01.2020