Teresa Margolles: Te alineas o te alineamos (You fall in line or they put you in line)

BPS22 is hosting the first solo exhibition in Belgium by Teresa Margolles. A native of Mexico, she builds her work in reaction to the violence that is ravaging her country and testifies to the social reality resulting from it.

The exhibition showcases pieces produced especially for the occasion drawn from the postindustrial environment of the town of Charleroi (BE), as well as some of the artist's previous works.

In 2007 Teresa Margolles exhibited her work Decálogo at the Museo Experimental El Eco in Mexico City. In the Old Testament, the word Decalogue refers to the Tablets of Stone showing the Ten Commandments spoken by God that govern social living. Teresa Margolles’ Decalogue consists of ten messages left by drug traffickers after a murder. Reproduced by the media, they are intended as much for society as a whole as they are for the enemies of the drug cartels.

Te alineas o te alineamos (You fall in line or they put in line) is the eighth commandment of her Decálogo. Engraved on a wall from the BPS22 Museum of Art, 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. The title of the exhibition reverberates through all the pieces 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. The town of 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

Press contact: Laure Houben
T +32 474 91 44 40 / laure.houben@bps22.be