The exhibition comprises a complex and ambitious new piece by Doris Salcedo, Tenebrae, November 7, 1985, (1999-2000), a confined room bisected with lead and steel structures-together with a group of related works. While these works give material form to the atmospheric resonance of actual events that took place in Bogota, they are also visual representations of the acts of violence, cruelty and oppression that occur with alarming frequency all over the world.
Salcedo’s work subtly bridges the gap between the private workings of grief and the public spectacle of politics and often draw on testimonies of victims of violence. The word Tenebrae translates to mean darkness, obscurity, gloom and shadows. Working for the first time with metal casting, Salcedo has combined industrial processes with the painstaking hand-crafting characteristic of her earlier work. She lives and works in Bogota, Colombia.