Teresa Margolles. New commission

On the 20 April 2012 Glasgow Sculpture Studios (GSS) will inaugurate the Public Programme at its new permanent home, The Whisky Bond by premiering a major new body of work by Teresa Margolles (b. 1963 Culiacán, Mexico) that has been created during a 5-month Production Residency, when she lived and worked in Glasgow.

Margolles' new work has been made exclusively for the new GSS galleries and is co-commissioned with Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 20 April–7 May 2012. It will also feature during Glasgow Science Festival 5–17 June 2012. This is her first residency in the United Kingdom, and solo exhibition of new work in Scotland.

For the past two decades, Margolles has not so much worked directly with the remains of bodies but rather with the traces of life, with shrouds, burial and memory, and with the way a violent act shatters human networks and affects them on various levels.

"Teresa Margolles is one of Mexico's most respected artists. Her work is strong both physically and emotionally and communicates the complexities of the site that has deeply informed her production since 2004: Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The artist pays homage to this border city and its people through her sculptures, installations, videos and photography, exploring the social, political, economic, cultural and spiritual tensions that exist within this urban sprawl. To experience Juárez accompanying Margolles, is to begin to understand her passion and commitment to this place and its inhabitants, to meet the family she has created there of students, teachers, friends and workers who participate, and assist in realising her artworks. It is to understand the energy she dedicates into translating her work from a Juárez context to a European one and finally, to realise that making some art, like living, requires the willingness to commit and to take risks. Margolles does that, and by carefully going into her work, one understands that so does every citizen of this metropolis." Jessica Berlanga Taylor

A commissioned text by Mexican writer, Jessica Berlanga Taylor will accompany the exhibition.

Throughout her residency, Margolles has been working with a photographic archive by living photographer Luis Alvarado, which she recovered. The archive includes more than 4,000 images taken in the seventies and eighties in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, Juárez is now infamous as one of the murder capitals of the world. Margolles has scanned, catalogued and analysed the negatives in order to—in her own words—"look at the past as a way of understanding the future."

In parallel, Margolles' initial site visit to Glasgow coincided with the civil riots in England and the days of social and political unrest that followed. Margolles travelled to London to document the aftermath. The photographic records and debris collected from the streets will form the basis of new work, which reflects on the idea that all places have a story of suffering etched into their past.

Margolles' Public Programme begins with a free public lecture as part of The Glasgow School of Art's prestigious Friday Event Lecture Series, organised by The GSA's School of Fine Art which will take place at 11am on the 16 March 2012 at Glasgow Film Theatre. The event is free and will be conducted in Spanish & English. See www.gsaevents.com. This lecture will provide an insight into the extensive practice, and development of Teresa Margolles' work over the past 16 years, as well as comment on her 5-month residency in Glasgow.

Margolles is currently shortlisted for the 2012 prestigious Artes Mundi 5 Exhibition and Prize, and exhibiting in the 2012 Adelaide Festival. Forthcoming presentations include the 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art.

Margolles' new work is part of GSS' critically acclaimed public programme that includes production and research residencies, curated exhibitions of new work, talks, symposia, off-site and artist-led projects and events, alongside professional development, education and community engagement programmes. This programme is curated by Amy Sales, Head of Programme.

The Whisky Bond is a new venue in Glasgow, Scotland, located at Speirs Locks on the Forth & Clyde Canal. The 100,000 sq ft building is enabling GSS to expand and enhance their research, production, presentation and education facilities, making GSS and The Whisky Bond a vital destination for all who wish to experience contemporary art, design and culture.

Teresa Margolles
New commission