When we think about the end of a civilization, we start with the remains that it left behind. Regardless of the circumstances that led or could lead to the disappearance of a culture, its vestiges enable us to hypothesize about the customs, events and ideologies of given moments and eras. This exhibition originates in precisely this idea of imagining a set of works of contemporary art as signs that can give an account of our civilization. The pieces in the show have all been selected because they are constituted as uninhabited scenes or objects in disuse that contain or give shape to traces that are subject to interpretation. To a certain extent, archaeology is the model of this inquiry, insofar as it alters the original condition of the artifact in question, turning it from a mute object into a witness to a whole social and cultural environment. In the manner of an inventory of cultural fragments from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, these works are put up for consideration as testimonies to a broad network of meanings—economic, political, social, cultural and ideological— that determine the work of art. The exhibition is thus posited as a speculative exercise for an observer who is alien to our time and culture, a potential archaeologist from the future who would resolve to explain the issues and contradictions of our time.

• Curatorship: Tatiana Cuevas
• Artists: Francis Alÿs, Carlos Amorales, Carl Andre, Giovanni Anselmo, Associated Press US Air Force, Helen Barff, Lothar Baumgarten, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Joseph Beuys, Alighiero Boetti, Andre Cadere, Mircea Cantor, John Chamberlain, Ramiro Cháves, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Zhang Dali, Tacita Dean, Jimmie Durham, William Eggleston, Peter and David Fischli & Weiss, Claire Fontaine, Carlos Garaicoa, Mario García Torres, Fernanda Gomes, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Félix González-Torres, Silvia Gruner, David Hammons, Mona Hatoum, Jonathan Hernández, Susan Hiller, Fritzia Irízar, Alfredo Jaar, On Kawara, Gabriel Kuri, MAREPE, Teresa Margolles, Gordon Matta Clark, Adam McEwen, Ana Mendieta, Lazslo Moholy-Nagy, Moris, Gabriel Orozco, Damian Ortega, Marco Rountree, Ed Ruscha, Santiago Sierra, Aaron Siskind, Reena Spaulings, Simon Starling, Otto Steinert, Tercerunquinto, Wolfgang Tillmans, Tatiana Trouvé, Pablo Vargas Lugo, Adrián Villar Rojas, Danh Vo, Zhan Wang, Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner, Wim Wenders, Franz West, Jane & Louise Wilson, Beatriz Zamora.
• Instituto Cultural Cabañas, Guadalajara, Mexico from February 28th, 2015 to June 21st, 2015
• Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico from July 25th, 2015 to October 19th, 2015
• Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, Mexico City, Mexico from April 27th, 2016 to August 21st, 2016
• App available
• Within the framework of this exhibition, several interviews were made to the curator and the artists: