Teresa Margolles: En el lugar de los hechos (At the Scene) at MoMA PS1

MoMA PS1 in Long Island City is presenting "En el lugar de los hechos (At the Scene)," the first large-scale US museum exhibition of Teresa Margolles, who was born in Mexico in 1963. Organized with The Museum of Modern Art, the show runs through February 8, 2027.

Margolles trained as both a forensic pathologist and a photographer, and the two disciplines shape her practice. For years she has examined violence that crosses national boundaries, with particular attention to the US-Mexico border. Her subjects include disappearances, femicides, political displacement and societal neglect, which she approaches through careful research, interventions tied to specific sites, and a fundamental rethinking of what a memorial can be.

The exhibition brings together several room-sized installations and a new commission. Its centerpiece is La promesa (2012), a monumental barrier built from 14 tons of rubble. Margolles disassembled the material herself from a house in Ciudad Juárez that a family had abandoned. Other works on view include La grand América (2017), La búsqueda (1) (The Search [1]) (2014) and Vestigios de la ira (Vestiges of Wrath) (2026). La promesa is activated daily at 3 p.m.

Across these pieces, the show makes visible how violence seeps into ordinary life and leaves a sense of loss, using tangible materials drawn from real places. A concurrent presentation, Aproximación al lugar de los hechos (Approaching the Scene), is on view at The Museum of Modern Art, so the two venues can be visited together.

The exhibition is co-organized by Ana Janevski and Inés Katzenstein, with Chloë Courtney and Julia Detchon, all of MoMA. Support comes from the Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art. MoMA PS1 offers free admission and is open 12–6 p.m. on the day of listing.