Art by Telephone, 2014
Photo: Courtesy the artist
Collection
Collage on c-print
31 x 48 cm
In her practice, Goshka Macuga takes on the role of artist, curator, collector, and researcher. Her investigations during the production of a play staged for the 8th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art in 2014, "Preparatory Notes for a Chicago Comedy," culminated in a series of tapestries, collages, objects, and set pieces. Drawing on in-depth archival and historical research into German art historian Aby Warburg’s playlet, “Hamburg Comedy,” which was performed only once at a Warburg family gathering on December 31, 1896, the works in this series embody an examination of relationships between artists, institutions, politics, and social issues.
Throughout Macuga’s play, and the resulting works, a revolving cast of characters appears, including curator Richard Artschwager, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and his wife, collector Dasha Zhukova, Warburg’s psychiatrist Dr. Ludwig Binswanger, museum administrator Jan van der Marck, as well as artists John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Andrea Fraser, and Marina Abramović, among others. Through the characters, Macuga examines art historical relationships by rephrasing existing narratives in familiar language.
In the first scene of her play, and in the collage Art by Telephone, Macuga explores the history of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Drawing on MCA’s 1969 exhibition “Art by Telephone,” she references the pioneering exhibition organized by museum administrator Jan van der Marck. The exhibition included conceptual artworks by 39 artists, including John Baldessari, James Lee Byars, Claes Oldenburg, Richard Serra, and Robert Smithson. For the exhibition, each of the artists phoned van der Marck and MCA staff to instruct them in the execution of an artwork based solely on the artist’s verbal instructions. Marcel Duchamp, Richard Artschwager, John Cage, Aby Warburg, and Angela Merkel all appear, addressing both the production of artworks as well as contemporary social issues – namely the ongoing phone tapping scandal by the NSA. Macuga's collage is a result of months of research in order to recreate her own mythical scene from this paramount exhibition. – Alicia Reuter
Please visit the MCA's website for more information about Goshka Macuga's project "Preparatory Notes for a Chicago Comedy".
Sara Wade's research on the exhibition "Art by Telephone" can be found here.
31 x 48 cm
In her practice, Goshka Macuga takes on the role of artist, curator, collector, and researcher. Her investigations during the production of a play staged for the 8th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art in 2014, "Preparatory Notes for a Chicago Comedy," culminated in a series of tapestries, collages, objects, and set pieces. Drawing on in-depth archival and historical research into German art historian Aby Warburg’s playlet, “Hamburg Comedy,” which was performed only once at a Warburg family gathering on December 31, 1896, the works in this series embody an examination of relationships between artists, institutions, politics, and social issues.
Throughout Macuga’s play, and the resulting works, a revolving cast of characters appears, including curator Richard Artschwager, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and his wife, collector Dasha Zhukova, Warburg’s psychiatrist Dr. Ludwig Binswanger, museum administrator Jan van der Marck, as well as artists John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Andrea Fraser, and Marina Abramović, among others. Through the characters, Macuga examines art historical relationships by rephrasing existing narratives in familiar language.
In the first scene of her play, and in the collage Art by Telephone, Macuga explores the history of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Drawing on MCA’s 1969 exhibition “Art by Telephone,” she references the pioneering exhibition organized by museum administrator Jan van der Marck. The exhibition included conceptual artworks by 39 artists, including John Baldessari, James Lee Byars, Claes Oldenburg, Richard Serra, and Robert Smithson. For the exhibition, each of the artists phoned van der Marck and MCA staff to instruct them in the execution of an artwork based solely on the artist’s verbal instructions. Marcel Duchamp, Richard Artschwager, John Cage, Aby Warburg, and Angela Merkel all appear, addressing both the production of artworks as well as contemporary social issues – namely the ongoing phone tapping scandal by the NSA. Macuga's collage is a result of months of research in order to recreate her own mythical scene from this paramount exhibition. – Alicia Reuter
Please visit the MCA's website for more information about Goshka Macuga's project "Preparatory Notes for a Chicago Comedy".
Sara Wade's research on the exhibition "Art by Telephone" can be found here.
The Polish-British artist Goshka Macuga (born 1967) works in the field of installations, using media as varied as photo collage, sculpture, large-format tapestry, video and performance. She is known for her diverse approach that extends to the curatorial and the narrative. Using extensive artistic research, she develops storylines for her works and exhibitions in which she combines fiction and history. Her “materials” are pivotal moments in human history, as well as works by other artists, which she stages in playful displays.Macuga is interested in the myriad connections within cultural history, especially that of the international avant-gardes of the twentieth century.
This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.
This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.