Goshka Macuga (1967) is a Polish artist based in London. She was one of the four nominees for the 2008 Turner Prize.
Goshka Macuga was born in Poland. A graduate of Central St. Martins College of Art and Design and Goldsmiths, University of London, she works across mediums from Jacquard woven tapestries to sculptures and robotics. Macuga is known for taking on the role of a curator and archivist within her practice, as her installations often incorporate other artists’ work alongside a variety of disparate objects. Macuga's work is commonly made for the specific institution in which it will be shown, her place-based installations involve many months worth of historical research and have been considered rich storytelling devices.
In 2009 Macuga had an exhibition at the newly re-opened Whitechapel Gallery in London wherein she 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 original painting. After 24 years on display just outside the Security Council at the Headquarters of the United Nations, the tapestry commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller was removed and loaned to Whitechapel for Macuga's installation. Along with the borrowed tapestry, Macuga made a bronze cubist sculpture of Colin Powell, a documentary film, sourced a handwoven Middle Eastern rug, and installed a conference table. As part of the installation, Macuga invited groups to hold meetings in the space free of charge.
While in residence at the Walker Art Center in 2010-11, Macuga produced work for her first solo show in the United States 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. Macuga designed enormous woven tapestries of photographs taken in Minnesota's oldest pine forests and used the textile as a backdrop for select pieces from Walker's permanent collection, including works from Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys.
In 2012 Macuga created two large photorealistic tapestries for dOCUMENTA, one was displayed in Kassel, Germany and its counterpart in Kabul, Afghanistan. The two-part work called Of what is, that it is; of what is not, that it is not is 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 a photoshopped collage of an art-world crowd and protesters gathering outside of the Orangerie in Kassel. Macuga's composition technique of collaging together historical photographs and subsequently having the image woven into a unified textile allows her to 'illuminate the elusive relationship between historic documentation and truth
© 2019. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Goshka Macuga. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
Goshka Macuga was born in Poland. A graduate of Central St. Martins College of Art and Design and Goldsmiths, University of London, she works across mediums from Jacquard woven tapestries to sculptures and robotics. Macuga is known for taking on the role of a curator and archivist within her practice, as her installations often incorporate other artists’ work alongside a variety of disparate objects. Macuga's work is commonly made for the specific institution in which it will be shown, her place-based installations involve many months worth of historical research and have been considered rich storytelling devices.
In 2009 Macuga had an exhibition at the newly re-opened Whitechapel Gallery in London wherein she 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 original painting. After 24 years on display just outside the Security Council at the Headquarters of the United Nations, the tapestry commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller was removed and loaned to Whitechapel for Macuga's installation. Along with the borrowed tapestry, Macuga made a bronze cubist sculpture of Colin Powell, a documentary film, sourced a handwoven Middle Eastern rug, and installed a conference table. As part of the installation, Macuga invited groups to hold meetings in the space free of charge.
While in residence at the Walker Art Center in 2010-11, Macuga produced work for her first solo show in the United States 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. Macuga designed enormous woven tapestries of photographs taken in Minnesota's oldest pine forests and used the textile as a backdrop for select pieces from Walker's permanent collection, including works from Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys.
In 2012 Macuga created two large photorealistic tapestries for dOCUMENTA, one was displayed in Kassel, Germany and its counterpart in Kabul, Afghanistan. The two-part work called Of what is, that it is; of what is not, that it is not is 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 a photoshopped collage of an art-world crowd and protesters gathering outside of the Orangerie in Kassel. Macuga's composition technique of collaging together historical photographs and subsequently having the image woven into a unified textile allows her to 'illuminate the elusive relationship between historic documentation and truth
© 2019. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Goshka Macuga. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
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| Ms. Goshka Macuga |
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| 2003, Cabinet of Abstracts (after El Lissitzky) |
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| 2003, installation view, The Straight or Crooked Way |
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| 2005-06, British Art Show |
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| 2006, Sleep of Ulro |
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| 2006, Sleep of Ulro, The Furnace Commission, A Foundation |
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| 2006, Sleep of Ulro, The Furnace Commission, A Foundation |
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| 2006, Somnambulist |
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| 2006, Study for a portrait of Lord Byron (Lord Byron Table) |
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| 2007, Boy & Girl, installation view, Objects in Relation |
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| 2007, Madame Blavatsky |
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| 2007, Unfamiliar Aspect of a Familiar Monster |
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| 2008, installation view, Santhal Family |
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| 2008, installation view |
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| 2009, I am become death |
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| 2009, The Nature of the Beast |
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| 2009, The Nature of the Beast |
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| 2011, It Broke From Within |
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| 2011, Letter |
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| 2012, Of what is, That it is; of what is not, That it is not |
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| 2013, A meeting of the St. Petersburg Union for the Liberation of the Working Class |
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| 2013, Death of Marxism, Women of All Lands Unite |
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| 2013, Lenin addresses the troops outside the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow |
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| 2013, Suit for Tichy |
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| 2014, Aby Warburg on Madness and Ritual, set for Scene |
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| 2014, Installation view, Madness, and Ritual |
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| 2014, Madness and Ritual set for Scene |
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| 2015, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, Configuration 3, Mnemonics |
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| 2015, To the Son of Man Who Ate the Scroll |
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| 2015, To the Son of Man Who Ate the Scroll |
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| 2016, International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, Configuration 28, Technology’s Awakening |
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| 2016, International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, Configuration 28, Technology’s Awakening |
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| 2016, Karl Marx |
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| 2016, installation view of "Now this, is this the end … the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end? |
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| 2016, Time As Fabric |
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| 2016, Time As Fabric |
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| 2016, Time As Fabric |
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| 2016, To the Son of Man Who Ate the Scroll |
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| 2016, To the Son of Man Who Ate the Scroll |
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| 2019, Discret Model, Nr. 008 |
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| The Past is a Foreign Country- They Do Things Differently There (detail) |
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| Hello World- Revising a Collection |
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| Machines à penser |
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| On the other side of tomorrow |
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| Stairway to Nowhere |
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