Goshka Macuga: with enthusiasm into the journey of art creation

by Editorial Team | May 21, 2011 in Art | Leave A Comment

As always the festival of contemporary art is focused on artists, who are called to speak about their particular relationships with patrons and collectors and to present works which resulted from specific patronage. During the first day of the festival, we met Goshka Macuga.

In the latest years, the London-based Polish artist Goshka Macuga has become internationally renowned because of her use of archives and institutional histories as pieces of intricate patchworks which re-envision the world and its history through art. In a conversation with Milovan Farronato, curator and lecturer, she sheds light on the processes behind her work as well as the transformation that takes place from her initial vision to the realization and manifestation of the works in public.

The large projections of her works behind her glamorous presence in Cinema Sarti´s main auditorium allowed the audience to have a vivid sense of her works, enlivening the discussion.

During the interview Milovan Farronato highlighted the strong links between her work and public collecting as well as the fact she combines the roles of artist, curator and collector in her pieces. Her most recent work, It Broke from Within, currently in exhibition at the Walker Art Center, is an amalgamation of extracts from the institute’s archives rewriting its history, inserting also herself into the tapestry which spans an entire wall.

She describes her working methods as part meditated, part chance, taking as a starting point existing documentations and following the various, often unexpected paths to which they lead. Recounting how this and the Bloomberg commission, a work she created for London’s White chapel Gallery extension, in 2009, came about, she transmits with enthusiasm the journey which begins from the conception of her projects and continues throughout their exhibition. The participatory nature of this commission led to the piece gaining a life of its own as the public were invited to hold and document meetings within the piece, nourishing the history of both the piece and the museum itself.

Hearing Goshka´s anecdotes of the various requests and responses to this opening of the piece, the potentialities of art to shatter and reform ideas that seem fixed and immutable, becomes evident. Her art dynamically engages the public so that her proposals and bringing together of historical moments are just a starting point for a greater project.

In fact she claims that through responses to her work she is forced to constantly revaluate admitting her own naivety; this frankness makes her approachable and likeable, and her passion for her work was present until the end of the discussion.

Another day in the world of collecting has started today and – to continue our journey through the words of artists- the appointment is with Mark Dion, one of the most interesting mid- career Americans of the moment, will present his artistic strategy as a “collector”.

By Cyou: Sherene Meir, Martha Jiménez Rosano

Photo Credits: Serena Francone, Giovanni Mantovani, Giulia Gris

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