In Lieu of Unity brought together artists from Mexico who have sustained a curiosity about social relations in their art practices. Their focus demonstrated the nature of existence is contingent on the relationships between individuals and the collectives they form. Through varied perspectives on what it means to be together, these artists relinquished utopian ideas of unity. Instead, they explored the underlying systems that influence everyday encounters, such as language, commerce, architecture, citizenship and social mores. The exhibition as a whole can be seen as a collection of responses to social dynamics as they play out in specific locations in Mexico, within the context of Marfa, Texas, and throughout their shared geographic and conceptual borderlands.

In Lieu of Unity included established and early career artists working in video, sculpture, installation, performance/intervention and photography.

Of the ten participating artists, Eduardo Abaroa, Minerva Cuevas, Paulina Lasa, Teresa Margolles and Tercerunquinto have traveled to Marfa for research visits, to get a sense of the town’s unique social context. Along with other commissions by Margarita Cabrera and Pedro Reyes and extant works by Mario García Torres, Máximo González and Livia Corona, these projects collectively presented the means for thinking about communities outside idealistic notions of unified experience.

With the aesthetic identity of Marfa so firmly rooted in the legacy of Minimalism, In Lieu of Unity consciously shifts the focus towards another integral aspect of the town — its proximity to Mexico. Within this expanded framework each artist’s work exemplified a personal take on negotiating being together — encompassing relationships at all levels from the interpersonal to the international.

To inaugurate In Lieu of Unity, Ballroom Marfa hosted a weekend of festivities including an opening reception and a live music performance by the Mexican Institute of Sound.

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