Doris Salcedo: ‘Studio’ at Frieze Masters 2024

‘“Time,” as Hamlet said, “is out of joint.” Violent time is a dislocated time […] It is in this disjuncture of time that a work of art can open up a space in which to bring to our present the repressed and forgotten presence of the victims of the past’ – Doris Salcedo¹

Doris Salcedo’s work is born from her position as witness to more than half a century of civil war in Colombia. Through sculpture, large-scale installations and public interventions, the artist addresses the complex emotional and psychological effects of the brutalities of war and the traumatic impact of systemic forms of violence, such as displacement, disappearances and rape.

Salcedo relies on that which remains to circumscribe politically induced absence, drawing on literary sources such as Jorge Luis Borges and Paul Celan. Since the late 1980s, the artist has incorporated into her work quotidian domestic objects, such as furniture and clothing – at times filling them with cement as if to accentuate a permanent loss of function.

The process of remaking is important in Salcedo’s recent work, which responds materially to the testimonial injustice suffered by all victims of conflicts by interrogating the processes of loss, mourning and healing – and by giving body to the voices that cannot be heard. 

Doris Salcedo is showing with White Cube at Frieze Masters 2024.

About Studio at Frieze Masters 2024

Following its debut in 2023, Studio, curated by Sheena Wagstaff, highlights Frieze Masters’ commitment to living practice in dialogue with historical art. By focusing on artists’ place of making, it reflects the idea of the past informing the present moment of creation in an object for the future.

Studio features ten solo presentations by Beatrice Caracciolo (Paula Cooper Gallery), Isabella Ducrot (Sadie Coles HQ, Galerie Gisela Capitain and Standard [Oslo]), Nathalie Du Pasquier (Pace Gallery), Shirazeh Houshiary (Lisson Gallery), Kim Yun Shin (Lehmann Maupin), Mernet Larsen (James Cohan), Thaddeus Mosley (Karma), Doris Salcedo (White Cube), Nilima Sheikh (Chemould Prescott Road) and Adriana Varejão (Victoria Miro).

Further Information

Frieze London and Frieze Masters, 9 – 13 October 2024, The Regent’s Park.

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Explore All ‘Studio’

^{Main Image: Doris Salcedo, Tabula Rasa IlI, 2018. Wood, 83 × 150 × 79 cm. © Doris Salcedo. Courtesy: White Cube. Photo: Ollie Hammick}