Doris Salcedo

Exhibition Guide Lead support for Doris Salcedo is provided by the Harris Family Foundation in memory Doris Salcedo of Bette and Neison Harris: Caryn and King Harris, Katherine Harris, Toni and Ron Paul, Pam and Joe Szokol, Linda and Bill Friend, Feb 21–May 24, 2015 and Stephanie and John Harris. mcachicago.org Additional lead support is provided by Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson, The The exhibition is organized by Curator Julie Bluhm Family Foundation, Anne Kaplan, Rodrigues Widholm and Pritzker Director Howard and Donna Stone, The Andy Madeleine Grynsztejn, with the support of Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Curatorial Assistant Steven L. Bridges. and Helen and Sam Zell. The exhibition travels to the Solomon R. Untitled Unland Thou-less Dis­ La Casa Major support is provided by The Chicago Guggenheim Museum, June 26–October Works remembered Viuda Community Trust; Ministry of Foreign 12, 2015, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Affairs of Colombia, Ministry of Culture summer 2016. of Colombia and Embassy of Colombia in Washington, DC; Barbara Bluhm-Kaul and Don Kaul; Paula and Jim Crown; Video and Nancy and Steve Crown; Walter and Karla Reading Goldschmidt Foundation; Liz and Eric Room Lefkofsky; Susana and Ricardo Steinbruch; and Kristin and Stanley Stevens. A Flor de Piel Atrabiliarios Untitled Works

Untitled Works Additional generous support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Marilyn and Larry Fields, the Diane and Bruce Halle Foundation, Agnes Gund, the Kovler Family Foundation, Nancy and Plegaria Muda David Frej, Mary E. Ittelson, Lilly Scarpetta, Jennifer Aubrey, the Dedalus Foundation, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust, Ashlee and Martin Modahl, Lois and Steve Eisen and the Eisen Family Foundation, the North Shore Affiliate of the MCA, Carla Emil and Rich Silverstein, Jeanne and Michael Klein, Lisa and John Miller, Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Maria C. Bechily and Scott Hodes, the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, Jill Garling and Tom Wilson, Solita Mishaan, and Sara Szold.

The artist’s galleries have also provided support to present the exhibition and catalogue: White Cube and Alexander A Spanish translation of this brochure is and Bonin, New York. available upon request. Introduction

For the past three decades, Doris Salcedo has created sculptures, installations, and public interventions that address the experience of loss due to political violence, and the importance of remem­ bering and mourning. As a fundamental part of her process, the artist collects testimonies from those who have suffered at the hands of others. Her minimal, sculptural forms—meticulously crafted in her Bogotá, Colombia, studio—are informed­ by these personal accounts. Using common materials such as wooden furniture, concrete, rebar, clothing, grass, and rose petals in uncommon ways, Salcedo conveys how trauma makes daily life strangely unfamiliar. Her artwork attempts the difficult task of recovering individual dignity for the many victims, giving presence to the absent body, los desaparecidos (the disappeared), the marginalized, and those who remain invisible in the eyes of greater society. On this occasion, her first-ever retrospective exhibition, the MCA brings together the largest presentation of Salcedo’s work to date. The exhibition follows a loosely chronological trajectory from the earliest Untitled works to the debut of the newest series, Disremembered, as well as the US debut of the major installation Plegaria Muda. The exhibition also includes an MCA-produced documentary featuring the artist’s major public artworks, many of which were site-specific and temporary. Salcedo’s artworks, in their myriad forms, do not offer answers to the many issues they raise but instead invite contemplation about our shared humanity.

5 About the Artist Plegaria Muda 2008 –10

Doris Salcedo was born in 1958 in Bogotá, where she continues Plegaria Muda, which translates loosely to live and work. She earned a BFA at Universidad de Bogotá to “silent prayer,” began with Salcedo’s Jorge Tadeo Lozano (1980), focusing on painting and theater and research into gang violence in Los studying under painter Beatriz González (b. 1938). She earned Angeles. The artist noted how victims an MA in 1984 at New York University, and was influenced by the and perpetrators of gang violence work of Joseph Beuys and his notion of “social sculpture,” which often share socioeconomic circum­ integrated political awareness with art making. In 1985, she stances that lead to conditions of returned to Bogotá, where her first solo exhibition was mounted increased violence. They are often at the Casa de Moneda, Banco de la República. Interested in viewed as lesser in the eyes of broader arts education, she worked as director of the Instituto de Bellas society, resulting in a lack of empathy Artes, Cali (1987–88) and taught sculpture and art theory at the for the loss of their individual lives. Universidad Nacional de Colombia (1988–91). Her first solo The work was also made in response Plegaria Muda show in the United States was held at Brooke Alexander Gallery, to Salcedo’s experience of mass graves (detail), 2008–10 New York, in 1994. that she visited with grieving mothers Wood, concrete, earth, and grass Recognized since the early 1990s as one of the leading in Colombia, who were searching for Installation view, sculptors of her generation, Salcedo has works in many museum their missing sons. CAM–Fundação Calouste collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Each sculpture is composed of Gulbenkian, Contemporary Art Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, National two hand-crafted tables, which approx­ Lisbon, 2011 Inhotim Collection, Gallery of Canada, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Solomon imate the size and shape of a human Brazil R. Guggenheim Museum, and Tate. She has been featured in coffin. One table is inverted upon Photo: Patrizia Tocci numerous exhibitions such as the Carnegie International 1995, the other, with live grass growing from Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh; Roteiros, XXIV Bienal de São Paulo, an earthlike layer in between. The Brazil (1998); Trace, the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art installation counters the anonymity (1999); Documenta 11, Kassel (2002); the 8th International Istanbul of victims in mass graves with hand- Biennial (2003); the T1Triennial for Contemporary Art, Castello wrought, unique works, and asserts de Rivoli, Turin (2005); and produced the installation Shibboleth at the importance of each individual’s Tate Modern, London, in 2007. Her awards include a Solomon R. proper burial—whether in the United Guggenheim Foundation Grant (1995), the Ordway Prize from States, Colombia, or elsewhere. For the Penny McCall Foundation (2005), Premio “Velázquez” de las Salcedo, the individual blades of grass Artes Plásticas (2010), and the 9th Hiroshima Art Prize (2014). evoke a sense of optimism: “I hope that, in spite of everything, life might prevail, even in difficult conditions . . . as it does in Plegaria Muda.”

6 7 U ntitled Works U ntitled Works 1986 – 89 1989 – 90

This gallery includes some of Salcedo’s The installation in this gallery earliest works and re-creates, in part, re-creates one of Salcedo’s earliest an installation she developed for solo exhibitions at the now defunct the XXXI National Salon for Colombian Galería Garcés Velásquez in Bogotá in Artists, held in Medellín in 1987. 1990. Minimal in nature, the sculptures The sculptures are made primarily are made of hospital furniture, such from abandoned hospital furniture as cots, that have been wrapped in and reveal the artist’s ongoing interest animal fiber. The cots, leaning against in combining different objects and the wall, contain white shirts, wrapped materials for their symbolic value. like cocoons. This gesture of combin­ Untitled (1986), partially cons­t­ ing organic and inorganic materials, ructed from a found bed frame, as well as embedding objects, is seen Untitled (detail), Installation view, juxtaposes animal tissue, ten plastic 1986 throughout Salcedo’s work. Doris Salcedo dolls, and the severe angularity of the Steel shelving, These works are joined by Studio, Bogotá, steel cot, plastic, 2013 steel frame. Salcedo physically trans­ rubber, wax, and eleven sculptures composed of white Photo: Oscar formed the surfaces and colors of animal fiber cotton shirts in plaster and impaled Monsalve Pino Tate: Purchased Reproduced these objects, applying acids or 2002 by steel rebar. These sculptures were courtesy of White allowing the pieces to weather and Photo: Orcutt & created in response to two massacres Cube Van Der Putten collect dust. These works developed that took place in 1988 in the north out of the artist’s consideration of how of Colombia on the banana plantations Colombian drug cartels have recruited of La Negra and La Honduras. Salcedo’s poor boys from Medellín as hired research into these events greatly assassins, known in Spanish as sicarios. influenced both visual and material qualities of the resulting artworks. Alluding to the absent human body, the shirts reference the standard dress of workers on these plantations as well as funerary dress for the dead. Stacked in different quantities, these sculptures also appear to take measure of the loss of human life.

8 9 La Casa Viuda Video and 1992– 95 Reading Room

Salcedo’s interviews with displaced The video on view here documents rural Colombian women forced out Salcedo’s site-specific and large-scale of their homes in search of safety public projects, which have been resulted in the series La Casa Viuda. a significant part of her artistic Doors without buildings, unmoored production over the past fifteen years. from their foundations, evoke the loss It highlights Salcedo’s interest in of home and lack of shelter that these moving beyond the boundaries of women and their families were forced museums and galleries, inserting to endure. her sculptures directly into public The title of the series, roughly spaces—and public consciousness. translated as “the widowed house,” This gallery also includes a selection furthers this sense of loss and of books about the artist as well as La Casa Viuda VI, Doris Salcedo disruption to the domestic sphere. 1995 titles from her personal library of Video still Embedded within or joining the Wooden doors, poets, philosophers, and scholars © MCA Chicago steel chair, and pieces of furniture, one finds other bone who have informed her work. Untitled, August material remnants that evoke the Collection of the The works featured in the 20, 1999 Israel Museum, Roses human presence: a child’s toy chair, Jerusalem; gift documentary include: Dimensions human bone, and articles of clothing. of Shawn and Untitled (1999–2000), a series of variable Peter Leibowitz, Ephemeral Using a strategy employed throughout­ New York, to three public interventions in the public project, her work, Salcedo creates uncanny American streets of Bogotá was made following Bogotá, 1999 Friends of the experiences out of the seemingly Israel Museum the murder of popular political satirist familiar. As such, the house is trans­ Photo: D. James Jaime Garzón. Dee formed into a space of mourning. Noviembre 6 y 7 (2002) entailed the lowering of some 280 wooden chairs from the roof of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá on the seventeenth anniversary of the siege of the Palace by M-19 guerrillas and the govern­ ment’s counterattack in 1985. In Untitled (2003), approximately 1,550 wooden chairs were stacked between two buildings, addressing the history of migration and displace­ ment in Istanbul.

10 11 Neither (2004), an empty room Disremembered with wire mesh fencing embedded in the walls, situates visitors in a space 2014 reminiscent of a detention center, such as the US-run Camp Delta in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The three sculptures in this gallery Abyss (2005) entailed a feat of represent Salcedo’s newest series. engineering that extended the brick Made of woven raw silk and incorpo­ ceiling of a gallery in Turin’s Castello rating nearly 12,000 needles each, di Rivoli nearly to the floor, creating these works developed out of years of an oppressive environment. research into what Salcedo perceives Shibboleth (2007), a 548-foot to be society’s inability to mourn. long crack created in the floor of the At the core of this investigation is a Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, London, lack of empathy that pervades public drew attention to the postcolonial life, in which one person’s loss is not fissures in society that persist today. registered by others, and instead Disremembered I, In Acción de Duelo (2007), nearly those in mourning become stigmatized, 2014 24,000 candles were lit in Plaza de adding to their pain. Silk thread and sewing needles Bolívar, Bogotá in response to the When viewed from different Collection of death of Colombia’s Valle del Cauca angles, the details of the sculpture Diane and Bruce Halle Deputies who had been taken hostage oscillate between visible and in 2002. invisible: the glint of the nickel and Palimpsest (2013–present), a yet- the sheen of the silk appear and unrealized major work, addresses disappear simultaneously like a fading Noviembre 6 y 7, Acción de Duelo, victims of gun violence in the United 2002 July 3, 2007 memory. The work thus em­bodies a States by layering the names of 280 wooden Candles sense of paradox. Beautiful yet chairs and rope Ephemeral victims, some written with water that Ephemeral public project, dangerous, it is unclear whether these emerge from the ground. public project, Plaza de Bolívar, sculptures, with their thousands of Palace of Justice, Bogotá, 2007 Bogotá, 2002 Photo: Juan needles, are intended to protect or Photo: Sergio Fernando Castro to harm. Clavijo

Untitled, 2003 1,550 wooden chairs Ephemeral public project, 8th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, 2003 Photo: Muammer Yanmaz

Video and Reading Room 12 13 Atrabiliarios Thou-less 1992–20 04 2001– 02

In the early 1990s, Salcedo continued This installation marks an important to research the lasting effects of shift in Salcedo’s process away violence through extensive fieldwork from using found materials. These across Colombia. During this time, sculptures are steel casts of a wooden she learned that female victims were chair, with wood grain hand-etched treated with particular cruelty and into the steel. As a result, the solid that shoes were often used to identify steel objects appear vulnerable, remains—especially in the context creased, and crumpled. of los desaparecidos (the disappeared). These works also play on the In Atrabiliarios, worn shoes— anthropomorphic qualities projected primarily women’s—are encased in onto furniture, especially chairs— niches embedded into the gallery which have legs, a back, feet, and so Atrabiliarios Thou-less wall, covered by a layer of stretched (detail), 1992– forth. Numerous works in Salcedo’s (detail), 2001–02 and preserved animal fiber that is 2004 oeuvre use chairs to conjure the pres­ Stainless steel Shoes, drywall, Overall affixed to the wall with medical paint, wood, ence and absence, and the strength dimensions sutures. The semitranslucent surfaces animal fiber, and and fragility of human bodies. variable surgical thread Neue Galerie, of the niches obscure their contents, 43 niches and 40 Kassel, Germany alluding to the fraught relationship boxes, overall © MHK dimensions Photo: Ute between memory and time. The variable Brunzel empty boxes are also made of animal San Francisco Museum of fiber and seem to anticipate more Modern Art, deaths to come. Accessions Committee Fund purchase:gift of Carla Emil and Rich Silverstein, Patricia and Raoul Kennedy, Elaine McKeon, Lisa and John Miller, Chara Schreyer and Gordon Freund, and Robin Wright

14 15 Unland Untitled Works 1995 –98 1989 –2008

Unland is comprised of three distinct Throughout her career, Salcedo yet related works: Unland: the orphan’s has conducted extensive interviews tunic, Unland: irreversible witness, and with victims of political violence, Unland: audible in the mouth, completed transforming their experiences into in that order. All three works were sculptures that convey a sense of how made in response to interviews their everyday lives are disrupted. Salcedo conducted with orphaned The sculptures in this gallery children in northern Colombia, who represent Salcedo’s largest body of witnessed the murder of their parents. work to date, spanning nearly two Each of the works joins together two decades. Salcedo used only those different tables, creating one elongated materials that would be readily form, with human hair and raw silk available to these victims, the majority Installation view, Untitled, 2008 laboriously sewn through thousands SITE Santa Fe, of whom live in rural, impoverished Wooden chair, of tiny, follicle-like holes drilled into New Mexico, areas of Colombia. She filled domestic concrete, and 1998–99 steel the surfaces. These fractured, dismem­ Photo: Herbert furniture—such as armoires, bed Collection of bered tables allude to an interrupted, Lotz frames, dressers, tables, and chairs— Clarissa Alcock Bronfman broken family and home—resulting with concrete and, at times, clothing, Photo: Todd- in a life held together by the most rendering them functionless. She White Art Photography precarious of means. explains: “The way that an artwork The title, Unland, is a word brings materials together is incredibly invented by Salcedo to suggest a powerful. Sculpture is its materiality. sense of displacement. She was I work with materials that are already inspired by the poetry of Paul Celan charged with significance, with a (Romanian, 1920–1970), whose own meaning they have acquired in the words are appropriated for the sub­ practice of everyday life.” title of each sculpture. Celan is known for his writings in the aftermath­ of the Holocaust, a time when language seemed insufficient to address the traumatic events of that era and there­ fore required reinvention.

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1 Untitled, 1992 3 Untitled, 2007 6 Untitled, 2008 8 Untitled, 2008 10 Untitled, 1998 12 Untitled, 1998 14 Untitled, 1998 17 Untitled, 2001 20 Untitled, 2000 22 Untitled, 1995 Wooden armoire Wooden armoire, Wooden Wooden armoire, Wooden armoire, Wooden armoire, Wooden armoire, Wooden armoire, Wooden chair Wooden armoire, with glass, wooden chair, armoires, wooden cabinet, wooden chair, wooden cabinet, wooden cabinets, wooden cabinet with upholstery, wooden bed wooden chairs concrete, and concrete, and concrete, and concrete, and concrete, and concrete, and with glass, concrete, and frame, concrete, with upholstery, steel steel steel steel steel steel concrete, steel, steel steel, and concrete, and Private collection Collection of Jill Collection Tate: Presented National Gallery Planta, Fundación and clothing Planta, Fundación clothing steel and Peter Kraus Museum of by the American of Canada, Sorigué, Spain The Rachofsky Sorigué, Spain Hirshhorn The Art Institute 4 Untitled, 1995 Contemporary Fund for the Tate Ottawa, Collection Museum and of Chicago, gift Wooden chair 7 Untitled, 1998 Art Chicago, gift Gallery 1999 purchased 1999 15 Untitled, 1989 21 Untitled, 1998 Sculpture of Society for with upholstery, Wooden cabinet of Katharine S. Wooden 18 Untitled, 1992 Wooden cabinet, Garden, Contemporary concrete, and with glass, Schamberg by 11 Untitled, 1998 13 Untitled, 2001 nightstand, Wooden dresser, wooden dresser, Smithsonian Art steel concrete, steel, exchange, Wooden chair, Wooden armoire, concrete, and concrete, steel, concrete, and Institution, Cejas Art Ltd: and clothing 2008.20 concrete, and wooden cabinet, steel and clothing steel Washington, DC, 2 Untitled, 1989 Paul and Trudy Collection of Lisa steel concrete, and Collection of Private collection Private collection Joseph H. Wooden chair Cejas and John Miller, 9 Untitled, 1998 Fine Arts steel Carolyn Alexander Hirshhorn with upholstery, fractional and Wooden Museums of Marieluise 19 Untitled, 1991 Purchase Fund, concrete, and 5 Untitled, 2008 promised gift to armoires, San Francisco, Hessel Collec- 16 Untitled, 1990 Wooden chair 1995 steel Wooden chair the San Francis- wooden table, Museum tion, Hessel Wooden table, with upholstery, Institute of with upholstery, co Museum of concrete, and purchase, Robert Museum of Art, steel table, and concrete, and Contemporary concrete, and Modern Art steel and Daphne Center for concrete steel Art, Boston, gift steel Collection of Leo Bransten New Curatorial Collection of the Tiago Ltd: The of Barbara Lee, Collection of Katz Art Purchase Studies, Bard artist Tiqui Atencio the Barbara Lee Clarissa Alcock Fund College, Collection Collection of Art Bronfman Annandale­-on- by Women Hudson, New York

Untitled Works, 1989–2008 18 Untitled Works, 1989–2008 19 Tue, Mar 24, 6 pm A Flor de Piel Related MCA Studio Kirsten Leenaars, Notes on Empty 2014 Programs Chairs Chicago-based artist Kirsten Leenaars presents the first in a Described by the artist as a “shroud,” For a complete listing of MCA series of in-gallery programs programs and more information exploring themes of empathy, A Flor de Piel is composed entirely of regarding those listed here, visit community, and remembrance. rose petals that have been treated mcachicago.org. and preserved, in effect suspending Tue, Apr 7, 3–6 pm A fully illustrated catalogue is MCA Talk them between life and death. Utilizing available for purchase at the MCA Doris Salcedo Panel the same surgical stitching method as Store and at mcachicagostore.org. This interdisciplinary event focuses in Atrabiliarios, the petals have been Hardcover $50 (Members $45) on the political, social, and philo­ sophical aspects of Salcedo’s sutured together by hand. For more information on the work around memory, mourning, The piece developed out of work of Doris Salcedo, visit violence, and history. Speakers Salcedo’s research into the story of mcachicago.org/salcedo. include Rebecca Comay, professor of philosophy and comparative a nurse in Colombia who, after over­ An interactive guide to Plegaria literature at the University of coming great obstacles in her life, Muda is available on the museum’s Toronto; Daniel Quiles, assistant A Flor de Piel, multimedia publication 4 Stories, professor of art history, theory, and was kidnapped and tortured to death. 2014 at 4stories.mcachicago.org. criticism at the School of the Art The title of the work is an idiomatic Rose petals and Institute of Chicago; Juan Carlos thread Sat, Feb 21, 3 pm Guerrero-Hernandez, PhD Spanish saying used to describe an Installation view, MCA Talk overt display of emotion, similar to Hiroshima City candidate in art history and Museum of Doris Salcedo criticism at Stony Brook University; the English expression of wearing Contemporary To inaugurate the opening of her and others to be announced. one’s heart on one’s sleeve. Salcedo Art, 2014 MCA exhibition, Doris Salcedo Courtesy of the reflects on her practice, processes, Presented in partnership with explains that “A Flor de Piel started artist and inspirations. She discusses the DePaul University. with the simple intention of making a Photo: Kazuhiro social and political landscape in Uchida flower offering to a victim of torture, which she creates her work as well Sat, Apr 11, 11 am–3 pm as specific works on view. Family Day: Lost and Found in an attempt to perform the funerary Uncover hidden secrets, play with ritual that was denied to her.” Ticket required new ideas, and find your creative voice at this Family Day. With guest Tue, Mar 3, noon artists Poems While You Wait. MCA Talk Julie Rodrigues Widholm, Curator Free for families with children ages 12 and under Sat, Mar 14, 11 am–3 pm Family Day: Loop Make, explore, and experiment with art that lingers and rever­ berates, inspired by the exhibition, Doris Salcedo. With guest artists 500 Clown.

Free for families with children ages 12 and under

20 21 Sat, Apr 11, 3 pm Thu, May 14, 6 pm MCA Talk MCA Talk Malcolm London Voice of Witness Internationally recognized Chicago Mimi Lok, cofounder, executive poet, activist, and educator Malcolm director, and executive editor of London presents an in-gallery Voice of Witness, a nonprofit spoken word performance, and whose oral histories illuminate discusses issues related to activism human rights crises, speaks about and social justice with Lisa Yun the topic of witnessing with Max Lee, director of the School of Art Schoening, editor of the publication and Art History at the University of Throwing Stones at the Moon, a Chicago Illinois. Voice of Witness publication that recounts the most widespread Tue, Apr 14, 6 pm of Colombia’s human rights crises: MCA Studio forced displacement. Kirsten Leenaars, Notes on Empty Chairs Ticket required Chicago-based artist Kirsten Leenaars presents the second in Sat, May 16, 3 pm a series of in-gallery programs MCA Talk exploring themes of empathy, Theaster Gates and Lisa Lee on community, and remembrance. Doris Salcedo Artist Theaster Gates and Lisa Lee, Sat, Apr 18, 3 pm assistant professor of art history at MCA Talk Emory University, speak to social Rebecca Duclos and Daniel Quiles issues and the use of materials in on Doris Salcedo both Gates’s and Salcedo’s work. Rebecca Duclos, graduate dean, and Daniel Quiles, assistant Tue, May 19, 6 pm professor of art history, theory, and MCA Studio criticism, both at the School of the Kirsten Leenaars, Notes on Empty Art Institute of Chicago, discuss Chairs the social and political context Chicago based artist Kirsten surrounding Doris Salcedo’s work. Leenaars presents the third in a series of in-gallery programs Sat, May 9, 3 pm exploring themes of empathy, MCA Talk community, and remembrance. Drea Howenstein and Margarita Saona on Doris Salcedo Drea Howenstein, associate professor of art education and sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and Margarita Saona, director of graduate studies, Hispanic and Italian studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, discuss the use of objects, memory, and empathy in Salcedo’s work.

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