Necroarchivos: Doris Salcedo’s Plegaria Muda

Doris Salcedo’s Plegaria Muda (Silent Prayer) testifies to the resilience of life amidst uninhabitable and even impossible conditions. First envisioned by the artist as a response to gang-related deaths in Los Angeles, the installation was later informed by Salcedo’s interactions with mothers of the disappeared in Colombia. The piece includes sixteen pairs of coffin-like tables that enclose a layer of earth, suggesting a mass burial site and forming what the artist describes as a memorial to inspire collective mourning. Resisting the harsh environment of the contemporary “white cube” gallery space, grass grows in Salcedo’s installation, eerily evoking anonymous graves, but also survival against all odds. Each pair of tables is stained in subtly different tones, reflecting the unique lives lost. By encouraging silence and peace, the installation provides a fitting space for reflection and meditation. At the same time, this plegaria, or plea, exhorts the end of violence and the loss of further lives.
 

Curated by Dr. Adriana Miramontes Olivas as a special component of the Necroarchivos exhibition, Plegaria Muda acts as a necroarchivo (“death file”) to testify to past and current events where violent incidents have created grief and despair. As Salcedo affirms, “Art cannot explain things, but at least art can expose them. So that’s why, art here, is so important. And it is necessary.” Salcedo’s Plegaria Muda is on loan from the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and presented in consultation with the artist’s studio and White Cube Gallery in London.