The title (‘That’s Enough, You Sons of Bitches’) says it all: Mexican artist Teresa Margolles is not shy when it comes to voicing her protest against violence. This exhibition at PAC (curated by Diego Sileo), is titled after the phrase inscribed by a Narco gang on the beheaded body of woman found in Tijuana, to warn and insult their rivals. To convey contemporary horror, Margolles characteristically adopts minimalist aesthetics: the fluids of dead bodies are vaporized into air for Vaporización (2002–18) and the series ‘PM’ (2012) arranges the covers of the eponymous Mexican newspaper in a large grid, where images of violent deaths and sexually charged ads sit next to each other. In the series Pistas de baile (2016) Margolles portrays transgender women on the site of old dance clubs of Ciudad Juárez, torn down to make room for ‘urban renewal’ projects. In the small guide that accompanies the exhibition, Francesca Guerisoli compares the statistics of recent femicides in Mexico (7 women killed every day) and Italy (1 woman killed every three days), to conclude that ‘there is a structural problem shared by both the Mexican and the Italian culture, and that is male chauvinism.’
- Barbara Casavecchia