ARTIST

Goshka Macuga’s practice is based on historical and archival research, which informs her installations, sculptures, tapestries, and collages. As an artist she simultaneously assumes the role of a curator, historian, and designer. Macuga questions historiography, political structures, and the pressing issues of our time.

Rocks and trees with dramatic presence punctuate through many collages and sculptures in Macuga’s practice. Such works mark a departure from the archive and into nature. Beginning with Macuga’s 2007 Tate Britain “Art Now” exhibition, Objects in Relation, she has been experimenting with the aesthetic language of the 1930s. The artist explores the potential for objects to signify meanings alien to their actual form and open possibilities for multiple layers of references. Macuga touches on broader cultural and political issues where the symbolism of nature is rooted in political activism and resilience .

In Shadowland, 2009, a black and white photograph taken by the artist in 2008 captures a burned forest in the USA. This photograph has been juxtaposed with an image of a riot policeman at the 1970s anti-Vietnam War protests, which comes from the artist’s archival photography collection. Shadowland comments on ongoing ideological and social struggles wherein the evaluation of historical events is continually in flux.

Macuga was born in 1967 in Warsaw, Poland and lives and works in London. In 2019, Macuga was commissioned to make a large-scale tapestry for the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The work re-stages a well-known photograph of Andre Malraux taken in 1954 by Maurice Jarnoux for the magazine Paris Match, featuring Macuga surrounded by images that are intrinsically linked to MoMA’s history and collection. She was included in Documenta 2012 and nominated for the Turner Prize in 2008. Her proposal for the Fourth Plinth is currently being shown at the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy until June 2023. Solo exhibitions include Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona; Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy; Schinkel Pavilion, Berlin, Germany; New Museum, New York, USA; MCA Chicago, USA; National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland; Walker Arts Centre, Minneapolis; Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK; Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland and Tate Britain, London, UK.

CHARITY

Viva! Poland has been working since 2001 to protect animals in danger. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the organization has been on the Polish-Ukrainian border providing assistance to pets. Viva! Poland has a sanctuary near Warsaw where they take care of hundreds of unwanted animals and work to find them permanent homes in Poland. They also run campaigns to educate on and advocate for animal rights and protection.