Goshka Macuga (; born 1967 in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

as Małgorzata Macuga) is an artist based in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. She was one of the four nominees for the

2008 Turner Prize The 2008 Turner Prize was awarded on 1 December 2008 to Mark Leckey. The £25,000 Turner Prize is awarded by the Tate to one of four nominees and is based on their work in the previous year. The other three 2008 nominees were Runa Islam, Goshka ...

Life and work

Goshka Macuga was born in

. A graduate of Central St. Martins College of Art and Design and

Goldsmiths, University of London Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wor ...

, 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. Goshka Macuga, Pies

In 2009 Macuga had an exhibition at the newly re-opened

Whitechapel Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fir ...

in London wherein she incorporated a 1955 tapestry version of

Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

’s 1937 antiwar painting ''

Guernica Guernica (, ), official name (reflecting the Basque language) Gernika (), is a town in the province of Biscay, in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, Spain. The town of Guernica is one part (along with neighbouring Lumo) of the mu ...

'' 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 The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, and ...

at the

Headquarters of the United Nations zh, 联合国总部大楼french: Siège des Nations uniesrussian: Штаб-квартира Организации Объединённых Наций es, Sede de las Naciones Unidas , image = Midtown Manhattan Skyline 004.jpg , im ...

, the tapestry commissioned by

Nelson Rockefeller Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979), sometimes referred to by his nickname Rocky, was an American businessman and politician who served as the 41st vice president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. A member of t ...

was removed and loaned to Whitechapel for Macuga's installation. Along with the borrowed tapestry, Macuga made a bronze cubist sculpture of

Colin Powell Colin Luther Powell ( ; April 5, 1937 – October 18, 2021) was an American politician, statesman, diplomat, and United States Army officer who served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African ...

, 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 The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...

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 Minnesotas oldest pine forests and used the textile as a backdrop for select pieces from the Walker's permanent collection, including works from

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

and

Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...

. In 2012 Macuga created two large photorealistic tapestries for dOCUMENTA (13), 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 Darul Aman Palace ( ps, د دارالامان ماڼۍ; prs, قصر دارالامان; 'Abode of Peace' or, in a double meaning, 'Abode of Aman llah) is a three-story-tall palace located in Darulaman, which about south-west of the centre of Ka ...

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 An orangery or orangerie was a room or a dedicated building on the grounds of fashionable residences of Northern Europe from the 17th to the 19th centuries where orange and other fruit trees were protected during the winter, as a very large ...

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'.

Exhibitions

2011

* ''Untitled'',

Zachęta National Gallery of Art The Zachęta National Gallery of Art (Polish: ''Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki'') is a contemporary art museum in the center of Warsaw, Poland. The Gallery's chief purpose is to present and support Polish contemporary art and artists. With numero ...

, Warsaw * ''It Broke from Within'',

, Minneapolis

2012

* ''Exhibit, A'',

Museum of Contemporary Art Museum of Contemporary Art (often abbreviated to MCA, MoCA or MOCA) may refer to: Africa * Museum of Contemporary Art (Tangier), Morocco, officially le Galerie d'Art Contemporain Mohamed Drissi Asia East Asia * Museum of Contemporary Art Shangha ...

, Chicago * Kate MacGarry, London * ''Untitled'', Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York''Showroom'', Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich * '' dOCUMENTA (13)'',

Fridericianum The Fridericianum is a museum in Kassel, Germany. Built in 1779, it is one of the oldest public museums in Europe.

, Kassel and Queen's Palace,

Bagh-e Babur The Garden of Babur (locally called Bagh-e Babur; fa, باغ بابر, ''bāġ-e bābur'') is a historic park in Kabul, Afghanistan, and also has the tomb of the first Mughal emperor Babur. The garden is thought to have been developed around 152 ...

, Kabul

2013

* ''Non-Consensual Act (in Progress)'', Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm * ''Sexuality of Atoms'', Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York

2014

* ''Goshka Macuga Tapestries'', Lunds konsthall, Lund * '' 8th Berlin Biennale'',

Dahlem Museums Dahlem Museums (''Museen Dahlem'') is a complex in the Berlin-Dahlem district of Berlin. Its official address is at 8 Lansstraße, though its main entrance is at 25 Arnimallee. The earliest planning for the building was between 1914 and 1923, than ...

, Berlin

2016

* ''Time as Fabric'',

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sc ...

, New York * ''To the Son of Man Who Ate the Scroll'',

Fondazione Prada Fondazione Prada, co-chaired by Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli since 1995, is an institution dedicated to contemporary art and culture. From 1993 to 2010, the Fondazione has organised 24 solo shows at its exhibition spaces in Milan, conceived ...

, Milan''Goshka Macuga: To the Son of Man Who Ate the Scroll''
4 February – 19 June 2016, Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macuga, Goshka 1967 births Living people Alumni of Central Saint Martins Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London Polish contemporary artists 20th-century Polish women artists 21st-century Polish women artists