Goshka Macuga

Goshka Macuga (born 1967 in Warsaw, Poland as Małgorzata Macuga) is an artist based in London. She was one of the four nominees for the 2008 Turner Prize.[1]

Life and work

Goshka Macuga was born in Poland. A graduate of Central St. Martins College of Art and Design and Goldsmiths, University of London, she makes installations which incorporate other artists’ work alongside a variety of disparate objects.[2] She uses techniques and styles common in archiving and museum display.[3] Macuga's work method is often referred to as cultural archaeology as well as being compared to detective work. Her appropriation-based intervention posed questions about ownership, information flow, the possibility of using this information, as well as about the freedom of interpretation when taking advantage of available sources. Macuga often uses art history as a point of reference. When she is working in a given institution, she starts by looking through its archives.

For an exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2009, Macuga incorporated a 1955 tapestry version of Picasso’s 1937 antiwar painting Guernica into a year-long installation about the 1930s-era controversy generated by the painting. After 24 years on display just outside the Security Council at the Headquarters of the United Nations, the textile was pulled down and flown to London.[4][5]

While in residence at the Walker Art Center in 2010-11, Macuga produced work that would investigate the cultural and political context of the Walker Art Center itself. Culminating in the exhibition, It Broke From Within, Macuga investigated the history of the shaping of the Walker Art Center as an institution through its archives. The exhibition explored the political orientation, community theory, lumber, financial history, and serendipity of clerical errors concerning the Walker.[6]

In 2012 she was among the artists selected for the dOCUMENTA (13) survey in Kassel, aimed at artistic research and forms of imagination that explore commitment, matter, things, embodiment, and active living in connection with, yet not subordinated to, theory.[7] The resulting two-part work commissioned for the dOCUMENTA (13), Of what is, that it is; of what is not, that it is not consists of two photo-based black-and-white tapestries that are to be exhibited simultaneously but never together in the same place. Part 1 depicts a diverse crowd of Afghans and Westerners in front of Darul Aman Palace outside of Kabul, Afghanistan. Part 2, originally exhibited in Kabul, shows an a photoshopped collage of an art-world crowd and protesters gathering outside of the Orangerie in Kassel.[8]

Art market

Goshka Macuga is represented by Kate MacGarry (London), Rüdiger Schöttle (Munich) and Andrew Kreps Gallery (New York).

Exhibitions

Awards

See also

Notes and references

  1. ↑ "Four artists up for Turner Prize", BBC, 13 May 2008. Retrieved 4 September 2008.
  2. ↑ "Art Now. Objects in relation: Goshka Macuga", Tate. Retrieved 4 September 2008.
  3. ↑ "Goshka Macuga", PilotLondon. Retrieved 4 September 2008.
  4. ↑ Eve M. Kahn (March 11, 2009), Woven ‘Guernica’ Departs U.N. for London New York Times.
  5. ↑ Pam Kent (April 21, 2009), After an Expansion, the Whitechapel Gallery Reopens New York Times.
  6. ↑ "Goshka Macuga In Conversation with Peter Eeley and Bartholomew Ryan". Walker Art Center. Walker Art Center. Retrieved 03/07/15. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  7. ↑ "Goshka Macuga", Culture.pl. January 2013. Retrieved 29 May 2014.
  8. ↑ Goshka Macuga: Of what is, that it is; of what is not, that it is not, 2, December 13, 2012 – January 13, 2013 Smart Museum of Art, Chicago.

External links