A solo show in the Mexican Pavilion is the unanimous nominee for darkest work included in the vast 2009 Venice Biennale. On view until November 22, Teresa Margolles‘s ¿De qué otra cosa podríamos hablar? (What Else Could We Talk About?) comments on the political division and rampant drug-related violence in Mexico. The artist’s own experience as a founding member of the country’s Forensic Medical Service allowed access to government morgues, giving her space to develop conceptual, socially-based art with bodily substances: cadavers, morgue water, and blood. Disturbing, perhaps, though genuinely thought-provoking. Details on Margolles’s installations at the Mexican Pavilion after the jump, including video.
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If you’ve so much as glanced at a newspaper or website over the past week, you’re at least marginally aware of swine flu, the maybe-pandemic that has quickly dethroned Somali pirates as the best reason to follow the news.
Over the past week, cases of the disease have been disclosed the world over, from Scotland to Peru to California. Mexico, where the illness was reported to have killed 152 people — though some say the number is as low as seven — is the flu’s undisputed epicenter. Wired reports that its spread may have begun in the town of La Gloria, not far from a “large and notoriously unsanitary hog farm” run by Granjas Carroll, a division of American conglomerate Smithfield Foods.
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Less than a week ago, USA Today published an article about the proliferation of Mexican drug-cartel videos on YouTube, claiming that, like Jihadis and insurgents before them, narcocorridos now use the popular website to promote their cause. (Cartel leaders openly ran an ad campaign last year to recruit military deserters, so it’s not as if they’re shy about showing off.) Read More »
