The Hayward Gallery
Art & Language
Terry Atkinson, b. 1939, Yorkshire, UK
Michael Baldwn, b. 1945, Oxfordshire, UK
The Air-Conditioning Show, 1966 - 67.
The Air- Conditioning Show consists of an empty air-conditioned room and Frameworks, as series of legnthy and speculative texts that question the prevailing conventions for exhibiting art. The air-conditioning was intended to keep the gallery at a constant temperature that would contribute to the 'abnormal normality (a kind of ultra-usualness)' of the exhibition space.
Teresa Margolles b. 1963, Caliacan/Sinaloa, Mexico
Aire/Air, 2003
Teresa Margolles's art us an act of memorial. Working with death as her material, she focuses not on the dead themselves but on the physical traces of death. She uses these to speak about inequality and social injustice, and the narcotics trade in a country where drug cartels and law enforcement agencies are the complicit in forging an atmosphere of extreme vilence and fear. Visitors entering Aire/Air (2003), find a room that is empty, apart from air-conditioning units. But the slightly humid atmosphere is haunted; the air is cooled by water from public mortuaries in Mexico City that was used to wash the bodies of unidentified murder victims prior to autopsy.
