Academic literature on the topic 'Teresa Margolles'

There is a forensic prescience evident in the corpus of Mexican performance and conceptual artist Teresa Margolles. The gendered “states of exception” of Margolles's medium and message—the corpse, its presence and absence—relate to broader representations of Mexico's escalating “domestic violence.”

<p>Desde hace más de dos décadas el trabajo de Teresa Margolles ocupa un destacado lugar en el circuito artístico mexicano, y durante los últimos años ha logrado consolidarse a nivel internacional, exhibiéndose en importantes ferias y bienales y siendo acreedor a prestigiosos reconocimientos. ¿Pero qué clase de mirada en relación a nuestro entorno ofrece?</p><p>Suele argumentarse que la importancia de su obra radica en visibilizar la violencia que se vive hoy en México, permitiendo la aparición de la voz de las víctimas. Y ella sostiene que el sentido fundamental de su trabajo consiste en evidenciar que las víctimas son individuos, con historias particulares y no simples números.</p><p>El presente artículo intenta cuestionar estos argumentos a partir de un análisis en torno a los procedimientos seguidos para la realización de sus obras.</p><p>¿Será que nos encontramos frente a un arte de denuncia o simplemente somos testigos de un ejercicio de violencia perpetrándose dos veces sobre el mismo cuerpo?</p>

I focus on two contemporary art installations in which Teresa Margolles employs water used to wash corpses during autopsies. By running this water through a fog machine or through air conditioners, these works incorporate bodily matter but refuse to depict, identify or locate anybody (or any body) within it. Rather, Margolles creates abstract works in which physical limits – whether of bodies or of art works – dissolve into a state of indeterminacy. With that pervasive distribution of corporeal matter, Margolles charts the dissolution of the social, political and spatial borders that contain death from the public sphere. In discussing these works, I consider Margolles’ practice in relation to the social and aesthetic function of the morgue. Specifically, I consider how Margolles turns the morgue inside out, opening it upon the city in order to explore the inoperative distinctions between spaces of sociality and those of death. In turn, I consider how Margolles places viewers in uneasy proximity to mortality, bodily abjection and violence in order to illustrate the social, political and aesthetic conditions by which bodies become unidentifiable. I ultimately argue that her aesthetic strategies match her ethical aspirations to reconsider relations to death, violence and loss within the social realm.

In the opposite side of these moralizing pictures produced by traditional journalistic and photojournalistic narratives, the Mexican artist Teresa Margolles creates art works that disclose the vulnerable condition of women in the brutality of serial murders in order to connect individual suffering to a collective ethics of responsibility. In this text, the analytical work focuses on two of Margolles recent art works: La búsqueda (2014) and Pesquisas (2016). Taking the concepts of vulnerability and precariousness (Butler, 2006; Butler et al., 2016), we argue that the relation between violence and gender in Margolles’s art work is presented as resistance addressing a common as polemical public space (Rancière, 2004), and giving place to the possibility of an interpellation scene (Butler, 2015). We also consider that this photographic work, which articulates individual sufferings in a complex narrative capable to invite spectators to a careful and reflexive contemplation, give rise to a political and aesthetical gesture that can be related to a politics of the images as it is argued by Jacques Rancière (2010b) and Georges Didi-Huberman (2012). The political and aesthetical dynamics crossing Margolles photographs is also related to the ethical responsibility voiced by Emmanuel Levinas (1982) concept of face.

Na contramão dos quadros morais produzidos pelos discursos fotojornalísticos tradicionais e pela cobertura mediática dos casos de femicídio no cotidiano, a artista mexicana Teresa Margolles cria obras onde a brutalidade de assassinatos em série conecta o sofrimento individual a uma responsabilidade ética coletiva. Neste texto, analisaremos as construções fotográficas de duas obras recentes da artista mexicana: La búsqueda (2014) e Pesquisas (2016). A partir das noções de vulnerabilidade e de precariedade (Butler, 2006; Butler et al., 2016), argumentamos que a relação entre violência e gênero no trabalho de Margolles é apresentada sob a forma da resistência, dirigindo-se a um comum enquanto espaço público polémico (Rancière, 2004), e instaurando a possibilidade de uma cena de interpelação (Butler, 2015). Consideramos ainda que estas obras, onde os sofrimentos individuais foram articulados em uma narrativa complexa, passíveis de interpelar os espectadores, compõem um gesto estético-político, que se acorda com a política das imagens reivindicada por pensadores como Jacques Rancière (2010b) e Georges Didi-Huberman (2012). A dinâmica política e estética que atravessa as fotografias de Margolles é relacionada ainda com a responsabilidade ética implícita na noção de rosto em Emmanuel Levinas (1982).

En un México atravesado por el crimen y la violencia, la palabra exhumación trae a la memoria el dolor, la rabia y la desesperación por esos miles de muertos, que comparten una fosa en común, en el extenso territorio mexicano. En este contexto, este trabajo es una reflexión filosófica y conceptual, acerca de la capacidad política y contestataria que tiene la obra de la artista Teresa Margolles (Culiacán, México, 1963), ante la deriva necropolítica y de extrema violencia, que atraviesa el Estado mexicano. Así, a partir de una colección de obras críticas y despojadas del artificio espectacular del arte de masas, en donde la aniquilación del cuerpo y la violación del cadáver forman parte de las lógicas de producción del capital, el arte de Margolles remite a la ausencia y el vacío que deja, siempre, un cuerpo en retirada, desde donde dar voz a ese conjunto de comunidades vulnerables, que se pierden en el olvido.

The artist Teresa Margolles, Mexico's foremost proponent of corpse art, is based in Mexico City and exhibits her work across the world. Her central obsessions are death, the dead body, and violence, themes which are manifested in her exploration of `la vida del cadaver' (`the life of the corpse'). For the early part of her career during the 1990s, Margolles worked as part of the SEMEFO collective, and she has subsequently maintained her artistic career on a solo basis. She works with the bodies of individuals who were socially and economically disadvantaged during life, and has used body parts and residues such as blood and fat in her works, as well as objects from the morgue that have come into contact with corpses. The corpse itself, however, is not often revealed; rather its presence is suggested by raw materials such as air and water. The artist employs deceptively subtle means of representation that operate on multiple sensory planes in order to draw the spectator into contemplation of the unsettling realities of social inequality and violence in her native Mexico, which sometimes occurs through direct physical contact between the viewer and the raw materials used by Margolles in her art works. The boundaries between life and death, and the inside and the outside of the body, are transgressed. A selection of works taken from different points in the artist's career will be explored from a range of theoretical perspectives including the sociology of the body, the sociology of death, philosophical approaches to the experience of contemplating death and the corpse, and the history of the exploration of these themes in visual culture. In this way, the artist uses an artistic language that may be interpreted across borders, to address a specifically local set of circumstances.

La presente investigación realiza un estudio a profundidad de la obra de Santiago Sierra y Teresa Margolles, quienes han trabajado en México desde el inicio de la década de los 90, y que ocupan hoy un destacado lugar en el circuito artístico internacional. Suele argumentarse que la importancia de su obra radica en visibilizar los increíbles niveles de violencia y polarización de la riqueza existentes en nuestra sociedad, constituyendo no sólo una denuncia sino un llamado a la reflexión ya la toma de postura crítica. Este trabajo cuestiona estos argumentos y enuncia que en la obra de ambos productores visuales existe una clara discordancia entre el discurso que las valida y las estrategias concretas seguidas para su realización. Pone particular atención a las prácticas de denigración y maltrato, así como a las dinámicas de objetualización y comercialización de los sujetos. ¿Nos encontramos frente a un arte de denuncia o simplemente somos testigos de un ejercicio de violencia perpetrándose dos veces sobre el mismo cuerpo? La hipótesis que se pretende demostrar es que su obra se articula a partir de la reproducciónde algunas de las lógicas más brutales del sistema económico y político vigente en México. La investigación establece diversos puntos de coincidencia entre el trabajo de Santiago Sierra y Teresa Margolles, plantea la existencia de una línea de continuidad en su obra y ubica la genealogía de sus propuestas en el periodo de instauración del neoliberalismo en México. Se realiza por tanto una reconstrucción de la serie de cambios experimentados por el circuito artístico mexicano durante aquél periodo, advirtiendo cómo las modificaciones suscitadas en el terreno político fueron acompañadas de una profunda transformación en la manera de entender el sentido y los límites del quehacer artístico. Se analiza la insistencia de ambos productores visuales (muy acorde al discurso de importantes sectores de la comunidad artística mexicana a inicios de la década de los 90) en afirmar la impotencia del arte, y se recuperan diversas declaraciones en las que queda de manifiesto su abierto desinterés por incidir en la realidad social. ¿Qué sentido parece tener entonces su trabajo? Si entendemos el arte como estrategia reflexiva, como herramienta para cuestionarnos sobre nuestra realidad, su quehacer no podría limitarse a la enunciación de lo existente sino que debería dirigirse a proponer mundos posibles.La reflexión se encuentra inexorablemente ligada a la posibilidad de creación, al deseo de incidir en la realidad (que puede aparecer como algo remoto o parcial, pero sin duda irrenunciable). La investigación concluye con una reflexión teórica, y una serie de imágenes en torno a la ética como ente capaz de resistirse a la impotencia y el desencanto: es la valoración, el reconocimiento de la humanidad e infinitud del Otro, lo único capaz de poner en marcha el deseo deapostar por la posibilidad de construir realidades compartidas.
This is an in-depth study of the work of Santiago Sierra and Teresa Margolles, who have worked in Mexico since the early 90’s and today hold an important position in the international artistic circuit. It is often said that the importance of their work lies in their ability to make visible the unbelievable levels of violence and polarization of wealth which exists in our society, and in the process, not only exposing it, but calling us to reflect on this and to take a critical stance. This work challenges such a view and proposes that the work of both producers presents a clear discrepancy between their validating discourse and the concrete strategies they follow to carry it out. Special attention is placed on the practices of denigration and abuse, as well as the process of objectifying and commercializing their subjects. Is this art of exposure or are we merely witnessing an act of violence being perpetrated twice on the same body? The hypothesis intends to demonstrate that their work does not only fail to question the present economic system, but that it also reproduces some of its most brutal rationale. This research establishes several points of coincidence between the work of Santiago Sierra and Teresa Margolles, it presents the existence of a line of continuity in their work, and it places the genealogy of their proposals at the onset of neoliberalism in Mexico. Therefore, it reconstructs a series of changes observed within the Mexican artistic circuit during this period, remarking on the way in which changes made in the political arena were accompanied by a deep transformation in the way we comprehend the meaning and limitations of artistic creation. This research concludes with a theoretical reflection and a series of drawings around the issue of ethics as an entity which is capable of resisting itself to impotence and disenchantment: the value, the recognition of humanity and the infinite Other, is the only thing capable of setting forth the will to bet on the possibility of building a shared reality.

The artistic project of the Mexican Teresa Margolles is one of the most vast, complex and coherent in the international scene, although there is not a complete catalog, monograph or rigorous study of it. Her focus of interest, her radical post-minimalist aesthetic, her display of ethical conflicts and the political implications that locate her within a post-autonomy art, give her work the highest validity and raise her as one of the leading figures in contemporary art. All her production is crossed by death and violence issues, addressed in a Baroque and visceral way at the beginning of her career in the hands of the artists’ collective SEMEFO, with whom she produced eminently performative works in which the instinctive, the ritual and the sacrificial were essential. Later on, during her solo career, the obsession for the life of the corpse, the fauna that originates in the putrefaction is replaced by a less aesthetically aggressive speech, erected on what she calls the periphery of the body, where she uses the remains of the body to represent death. Her work as a forensic technician at the Mexico City’s morgue leads her to make of this her studio and to consider it as a social thermometer, capable of reflecting the prevailing impunity and injustice. When the levels of violence reached their peak, Margolles moves outside, to the streets and begins to formally clean up her work, as the corpse is understood as a social body, collective. The necrophilia of her beginnings undergoes a displacement to necropolitics, focused on social traces of violence, its urban and demographic consequences. The general aims of this thesis have been to reveal how both philosophy and image emerge as a result of human kind’s concerns over death. In the same way, it is shown that representations of death have been a constant throughout the history of art, and that precisely at the time when the general attitude toward death began to be its denial, a strong trend emerged in contemporary art that insisted upon claiming it. The specific aims of this thesis consist of the outline of the historical, political, social and artistic context in which Teresa Margolles’s project emerges, as well as the conduction of a thorough mapping of its production, analyzing her interests and the different phases, aesthetic and stylistic shifts of her work. My intention is to unravel the complexity of its rhetoric language in order to understand how the tension between ethics and aesthetics, between reality and fiction, between denunciation and reproduction of violence, between emotion and reason; between art and politics are the keys to her project. My methodology is transdisciplinary, because despite placing this thesis within the field of art history, I rely on philosophical, anthropological, sociological, cultural, aesthetic and even political teachings. The conclusions of this study posit that the representation of death is impossible, and that the most appropriate way is through void or absence; that in the contrast of opposites, the tension between form and content – the impossible suture between the beautiful and the sinister, is the essence of Margolles’s project; and that art is a form of philosophy and politics.
El proyecto artístico de la mexicana Teresa Margolles es uno de los más vastos, complejos y coherentes del panorama internacional, del que sin embargo no existe ningún catálogo completo, monografía o estudio realmente riguroso. Sus focos de interés, su estética radical posminimalista, los conflictos éticos que despliega, y las implicaciones políticas que la ubican dentro de un arte postautónomo, dotan a su obra de una máxima vigencia y la erigen como una de las figuras más destacadas del arte contemporáneo. Toda su obra está atravesada por la muerte y la violencia, temas que son abordados de una manera barroca y visceral en los comienzos de su carrera artística de la mano del colectivo SEMEFO, con el que produjo obras de carácter eminentemente performativo en las que lo instintivo, lo ritual y lo sacrificial eran imprescindibles. Más tarde, ya en solitario, la fijación por la vida del cadáver, esa fauna que se origina en la putrefacción, va siendo sustituida por un discurso menos agresivo estéticamente, erigido sobre lo que ella denomina la periferia del cadáver, momento en el que se sirve de los restos del cuerpo para representar la muerte. Su labor como técnico forense en la morgue de México D.F. le lleva a hacer de ésta su estudio y a considerarla como un termómetro social, capaz de reflejar la impunidad e injusticia reinantes. Cuando los niveles de violencia alcanzan sus máximas cotas Margolles se traslada al exterior, a la calle, y comienza a depurar formalmente su trabajo, a la vez que el cadáver es entendido como un cuerpo social, colectivo. La necrofilia de sus comienzos sufre un desplazamiento hasta posicionarse en una necropolítica, centrada en las huellas sociales de la violencia, sus consecuencias urbanísticas y demográficas. Los objetivos generales de esta tesis han consistido en revelar cómo tanto la Filosofía como la imagen surgen como resultado de las preocupaciones del hombre por la muerte. Del mismo modo se demuestra que las representaciones de la muerte han sido una constante a lo largo de la historia del arte, y que precisamente en el momento en el que la actitud generalizada hacia la muerte comenzaba a ser la de negarla, surgió una fuerte tendencia dentro del arte contemporáneo que insistía en reivindicarla. Los objetivos específicos han supuesto el esbozo del contexto histórico, político, social y artístico en el que surge el proyecto de Teresa Margolles, así como la realización de una exhaustiva cartografía de su producción, analizando la deriva de sus intereses, las diferentes fases de su trabajo y sus fluctuaciones estéticas y estilísticas. La intención aquí ha sido desentrañar la complejidad retórica de su lenguaje para entender cómo la tensión entre ética y estética, entre realidad y ficción, entre denuncia y reproducción de la violencia, entre emoción y razón; entre arte y política son las claves de su proyecto. La metodología empleada es de carácter transdisciplinar, pues aún ubicando este tesis dentro del ámbito de la historia del arte, me apoyo en enseñanzas filosóficas, antropológicas, sociológicas, culturales, estéticas e incluso políticas. Las conclusiones de este estudio se concretan en que la representación de la muerte es un imposible, y que la forma más apropiada de hacerlo es mediante el vacío o la ausencia; que en el contraste de opuestos, la tensión entre forma y contenido –la sutura imposible entre lo bello y lo siniestro–, está la esencia del proyecto de Margolles; y que el arte es una forma de filosofar y de hacer política.

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Esta dissertação tem por objetivo trazer a tona uma reflexão sobre a produção artística contemporânea em três artistas latino-americanas, especificamente Janine Antoni (Bahamas, 1962- ), Teresa Margolles (México,1963- ) e Dóris Salcedo (Colômbia 1958- ), artistas que procuram uma exploração da noção de corporalidade por meio da análise de alguns processos esculturais-objetuais em produções artísticas que parecem trabalhar de maneira a repetir ou sugerir fatos, embora evitam a representação realista e que têm um interesse como obra de protesto. As três artistas utilizam a presença corporal em sua relação com o real apresentado. A repetição ou impressão é o que retorna, não é o fato original, mas sim, à sua sombra, sua memória. É no encontro com ela que se produz no sujeito um estranhamento, uma ansiedade e angústia traumática que parecem permitir sair do cotidiano e cogitar outras possibilidades de viver no mundo. Os resultados revelam as obras como testemunhas de processos vivenciais que permitem uma revisão de diferentes estados da poética corporal envolvida com a problemática de índole política. Palavras chave: Arte corpo, Janine Antoni, Teresa Margolles, Dóris Salcedo, memória, materialidade.

La presente investigación propone una lectura amplificada sobre la obra de la artista Teresa Margolles. Su trabajo ha sido investigado en relación con el cadáver y con la muerte violenta, aspectos que se consideran importantes pero insuficientes. Se propone hacer una presentación de su obra de modo que abarque la totalidad de su trabajo que incluye el cuerpo vivo y la señalización del problema social de marginación, segregación y precarización de la vida en el contexto político, económico y social de México contemporáneo. Se ha planteado una ruta interpretativa que mediante el análisis de un corpus de obras seleccionado y ordenado estratégicamente demuestre la construcción de una necropolítica situada y específica en su obra, así como la incorporación del cuerpo vivo como parte de una tarea crítica de señalización de las causas sociales y políticas de la violencia para el caso de México. Para ello se ha aplicado diversas teorías filosóficas de poder que han permitido evidenciar la relevancia política y de crítica social del trabajo de Teresa Margolles. Asimismo se ha propuesto el análisis de teorías de arte y de crítica institucional que permitieron demostrar que el trabajo de la artista también ha implicado la crítica al aparato institucional del arte contemporáneo. Así, se ha puesto énfasis en su rol y agencia como artista que realiza una suerte de desmontaje de un mapa social establecido para revelarlo en crisis.
Tesis

No autorizada por la autora para ser publicada a texto completo en el repositorio institucional.
Magíster en artes con mención en teoría e historia del arte
La presente tesis trata sobre la problemática de la deslocalización de la violencia política presentes en la producción artístico-visual en dos de las artistas más influyentes en el devenir del arte político- crítico latinoamericano contemporáneo, la colombiana Doris Salcedo y la mexicana Teresa Margolles. Se trata de un análisis y diálogo entre sus obras trabajadas principalmente entre los años 2000 - 2012, las cuales tanto por su complejidad histórica como representacional desbordan los códigos heredados de la institución, logrando poner en cuestión lo que la realidad actual tiene de inédito, la cotidianeidad de la violencia, situación que surge precisamente como consecuencia de los fenómenos sociales y económicos de la mundialización y la globalización desarrollados e instalados a nivel internacional desde la segunda mitad del siglo XX hasta comienzos del siglo XXI los cuales denotan la inminente crisis de los Estados Nacionales Desde este contexto es que este análisis es abordado tanto desde el plano histórico cultural particular de Colombia y México como desde la proyección que como obras alcanzan estas en relación con el nuevo arte latinoamericano y su internacionalización , dentro de estos mismos puntos se buscará discutir y responder la forma en cómo el discurso artístico de corte político- crítico que ambas artistas exponen en sus obras transita y dialoga con y desde los nuevos espacios del arte, es decir, el espacio galerístico, museal y público en la escena internacional, propiciando con ello, cuestionar y expandir el problema de la violencia política local a nivel mundial, para el desarrollo de lo anterior se recurrirán a determinados conceptos filosóficos y sociológicos de Jacques Ranciére y de Roberto Esposito(autonomía del arte y arte político del primero) , (lo impolítico del segundo) como también antropológicos y sociológicos (violencia política, Julio Aróstegui narcoterrorismo entre otros) los cuales irán relacionados a la mirada de otros autores vinculados siempre desde la reflexión artística y social contemporánea.

While the work of contemporary Mexican artist Teresa Margolles and her collaborators in the death-metal band and performance group SEMEFO is often contextualized within a national framework or within specific artistic developments of the 1990s, meager writing exists to explore how the artist and the audience experience the work. This thesis examines the work of Margolles and SEMEFO to contextualize their work with dead bodies and animal carcasses within a historical moment in Mexico City, but also to relate it to its many venues and audiences. In it, I study the work's relationship to affect, narratives of personal experience, and to the intimate ways in which artist and audience view the dead. Studying how Margolles and her collaborators change their presentation of corpses over time and in different spaces allows readings of the artists' relationship to their underground death-metal community, their urban independent artistic community, and their international museum-based community. Through these communities, we can understand Margolles' work as part of a more specific history based on intimate interactions and expressions of mourning.

This report outlines the conceptual, procedural and formal descriptions of the artistic development I have acquired over the course of the past three years. The current violent events caused by the War on Drugs in México –my home country- led me to this research. Beginning with the idea of erasure as language, I concentrated on the use of processes that are reductive in nature to create the bodies of work mentioned in this report. Thousands of people die in drug-related violence every year in México; by using metaphors and visual metonymies to tie together process and subject matter I explore the idea of perception, memory and transformation. I believe my work is derived from a need to find meaning in these brutal events that repositions the corpse in our field of vision, reminding us that our physical existence is finite.
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This chapter proposes a comparative analysis of the artworks Vaporización (2002) and En el aire (2003) by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles, and Aliento (1995) and Lacrimarios (2000-2001) by Colombian artist Oscar Muñoz. The changeable and fading materiality of these artworks problematizes hierarchical anthropocentric relations between human and matter. I propose that, through the use of water, charcoal, and vapor as medium, the installations facilitate intrusive and morbid encounters between the dead victims of state-sponsored narco-violence and the living, the contemporary spectators of these artworks. The analysis recognizes the precariousness of life for victims in Colombia and Mexico, and proposes that, by reading these installations as a locus where the material and the spectral converge, it is possible to reimagine the role of the living in the remembrance and commemoration of the dead in the aftermath of violence.

Taking as its point of departure the contemporary crisis of testimonio and the recent works by Eyal Weizman, who has suggested in his book Mengele’s Skull that we have now entered an era where subjective testimony has been supplanted by object-oriented modes of witnessing, this chapter introduces the category of forensic fictions as a way of categorizing and thinking through recent Latin American literature, art, and film. Analyzing how the figure of the archive and its ruins is represented as well as presented throughout recent Latin American cultural production—in a series of works ranging from Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 all the way to the forensic sculptures of Teresa Margolles—the article explores the possibility of a mode of witnessing that goes beyond the humanist notion of the subjective voice of the witness. In dialogue with contemporary debates concerning post-memory, it proposes that the image of the ruinous archive as a metonym for thinking through the possibility historicity in a world devoid of the foundational myths which had until then functioned as the basis of historical meaning.

The study of migratory behavior is, at a fundamental level, the study of geographic variation in behavior. This is necessarily the case when residency grounds at either end of the migratory route differ in spatial extent, because different directional movement patterns will be required of individuals from different parts of the two ranges. As many migratory animals are widespread, substantial differences in migratory routes exist among populations of single species (examples in Dadswell et al. 1987, Baker 1991, Dingle 1991, Groot and Margolis 1991, Berthold 1993). Because the individuals that migrate often have not done so before and often do not have older migration-experienced individuals to follow (e.g., Baker 1991, Berthold 1996), the study of navigational mechanisms and their genetic underpinnings is essential to understanding migratory behavior. Naturalists have long been captivated by the problem of control mechanisms in migratory behavior. As early as 1702, von Pernau suggested that birds were “driven at the proper time by a hidden drive.” In modern terms, this amounted to suggesting that migratory behavior was triggered by innate or genetically programmed stimuli, rather than by environmental factors alone. This speculation was supported by the discovery of endogenous annual cycles more than 260 years later (see Gwinner 1986 for a review). Our understanding of the control mechanisms of migratory behavior has expanded rapidly during the last 90 years. Research in the field has elucidated, for example, genetic and endocrine control mechanisms and their interface with environmental cues such as photoperiod, relationships between environmental conditions, such as weather and food availability and the timing of migration, and unique physiological and morphological correlates of migratory behavior (for reviews, see Berthold and Terrill 1991, Berthold 1996). Birds, fishes, and insects have proven especially valuable subjects for the study of migratory behavior, and all show substantial population differentiation in migratory patterns within species (Dadswell et al. 1987, Dingle 1991, Groot and Margolis 1991, Berthold 1993). In this chapter I focus on migratory behavior in birds, especially that in the blackcap, Sylvia atricapilla, an Old World warbler that has been the subject of extensive research in my laboratory since the early 1970s.