Jan van der Marck, 2014
Photo: Courtesy the artist | Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York
Collection
Wood chair, steel core with appliqué, painted
120 x 50 x 50 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.
Jan van der Marck, one of the main characters represented in Macuga’s play "Preparatory Notes for a Chicago Comedy," was born in 1929 in the Netherlands. To this day, as the founding director Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, he remains a looming figure in twentieth-century contemporary art. Widely admired, van der Marck frequently clashed with both institutions and museum trustees while at the same time exhibiting a number of emerging and European artists for the first time. In 1969 he organized the pioneering exhibition “Art by Telephone,” which Macuga pays homage to in her free-form play. The object here, Jan van der Marck, was present throughout various scenes of the play, especially in discussions concerning interpretations of Aby Warburg’s potential thoughts on present day communication technologies. Much like Macuga, van der Marck was attracted to dissenting cultural and political views, placing a high value on research, art history, and improvisation. – Alicia Reuter
Please visit the MCA's website for more information about Goshka Macuga's project "Preparatory Notes for a Chicago Comedy".
120 x 50 x 50 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.
Jan van der Marck, one of the main characters represented in Macuga’s play "Preparatory Notes for a Chicago Comedy," was born in 1929 in the Netherlands. To this day, as the founding director Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, he remains a looming figure in twentieth-century contemporary art. Widely admired, van der Marck frequently clashed with both institutions and museum trustees while at the same time exhibiting a number of emerging and European artists for the first time. In 1969 he organized the pioneering exhibition “Art by Telephone,” which Macuga pays homage to in her free-form play. The object here, Jan van der Marck, was present throughout various scenes of the play, especially in discussions concerning interpretations of Aby Warburg’s potential thoughts on present day communication technologies. Much like Macuga, van der Marck was attracted to dissenting cultural and political views, placing a high value on research, art history, and improvisation. – Alicia Reuter
Please visit the MCA's website for more information about Goshka Macuga's project "Preparatory Notes for a Chicago Comedy".
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.