Social Cataracts / Ceguera Social
by Oscar Murillo
Social Cataracts / Ceguera Social surveys the practice of artist Oscar Murillo with a concentration on bodies of work produced between 2019 and 2026. Developed in association with two recent major solo exhibitions in Mexico at MARCO, Monterrey and the Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, the book brings together bodies of work that were produced in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, the US, Europe and beyond. These include the monumental participatory installation, The flooded garden, which occupied Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in summer 2024. The book charts the evolution of a number of concepts and elements that run through this particular installation and Murillo’s wider practice, including references to bodies of water, such as the flood and the swamp; methodologies of social mapping, which have grown out of the decade-long project Frequencies; and a unique form of abstraction that lets in, and responds to, forces that are playing out in the world. The publication itself is rooted in lived experience, specific geographies, and ecosystems, which include the places in which Murillo spends time, and the communities that he is close to, in La Paila, Colombia, and London, United Kingdom.
Texts have been commissioned from authors who are close to Murillo’s practice and have been actively involved in the shaping of the bodies of work featured: Amanda Carneiro, Rosalie Doubal, Yasmijn Jarram, Oscar Murillo, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Emily Pethick, and Maria Belen Saiz de Iberra S.
Designed by Studio Manuel Raeder, the book includes extensive imagery of Murillo’s practice, including his most recent solo exhibition at DAS MINSK and The Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Collective Osmosis (2026), and his site-specific installations at Castello di Rivoli and the 36th São Paulo Bienal (both 2025-2026). The book also features a unique intervention into the printing process whereby pages have been printed several times and inscribed by a group of volunteers from the Berlin-based community group, BENN Mierendorffinsel.
