Teresa Margolles

James Cohan is pleased to present Portrait, an exhibition of new work by Teresa Margolles, on view from October 10 through November 1, 2025, at the gallery’s 48 Walker Street location. This is Margolles' third solo exhibition with James Cohan. The gallery will host an opening reception with the artist on Friday, October 10, from 6-8 PM.

Portrait features a monumental installation comprising 735 photographs of individuals from the trans+ community in Mexico and the United Kingdom. Margolles cast the participants’ faces in plaster to create individual improntas, imprints or masks. Photographed at a 1:1 scale, the casts often bear traces of makeup, facial hair, or skin serving as poignant reminders of each subject’s physical presence. Through this act of preservation, Portrait honors the individuality of every participant, unveiling a deeply human archive, forever immortalized.

Created with the participants of the artist’s Fourth Plinth commission Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant) in Trafalgar Square, London, Portrait uses a minimalist, grid-like format reminiscent of Margolles’ earlier works to create a serial rhythm that both unifies and differentiates the many faces. The structure echoes the language of architecture and order, yet within this, each face interrupts the possibility of repetition. This visual tension between sameness and specificity, anonymity and self, drives the emotional force of the installation. The grid does not flatten the identities it holds; instead it frames them in a space where they can be seen clearly, powerfully, side by side, not as statistics or symbols, but as people. In Margolles’ words, “Every face has a story attached.” Portrait serves as a tribute to Karla, a singer who was one of the artist’s dear friends. In December 2015, Karla was murdered in Juárez, Mexico, and her murder remains unsolved today. She was a fixture of the trans community.

While casting the improntas, Margolles created a suite of Polaroid photographs that serve as both physical artifacts and visual testaments to the profound exchanges she had with the sitters. Each session unfolded as a space for testimony beginning with Margolles speaking of her friend Karla, to whom the project is dedicated, and opening a space for the participant’s own story to emerge. The Polaroids, intentionally manipulated by the artist to reveal glitches, multiplications and distortions, hold aura not only as singular physical objects but as vessels that capture the full presence, life, and spirit of each individual.