Goshka Macuga talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work.
Macuga was born in 1967 in Warsaw, Poland. Her deep research into multifarious subjects manifests in the form of installations, sculpture, tapestry, photography, video and more. As well as making objects, she occupies a role that relates closely to that of a curator and historian, often weaving together her creations with existing materials, including artworks and archival documents.
Place has enormous significance in Macuga's practice, whether it is the museum or gallery, the city or the country in which she is presenting her ideas. After exploring her site and engaging in lengthy research, she fuses her own subjective interest with objective material, to produce absorbing and often complex environments that provoke broad meanings and reactions.
Goshka Macuga, Death of Marxism, Women of All Lands Unite, 2013, wool tapestry, 560 x 290 cm
She discusses the transformative impact of seeing the work of Christo in an art magazine; her interest in Paul Nash and Eileen Agar—and the personal importance to her of a work by Agar that is in her studio. She also covers how the subversive strategies used by Stanisław Lem when he was writing science fiction in Communist Poland have influenced her practice; and how, during Covid, she created a club for dancing in her studio. Plus, she gives insight into her rituals and disciplines and answers our usual questions, including, “what is art for?”
Goshka Macuga: Born from Stone, London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE, until 18 January 2025
This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the arts and culture app.
The free app offers access to a vast range of international cultural organisations through a single download, with new guides being added regularly. They include several of the UK museums in which Goshka Macuga has had important shows, including the Whitechapel Gallery, Tate and the London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE. If you download Bloomberg Connects, you’ll discover that the guide to London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE has in-depth features about Born from Stone, Goshka’s project for the gallery. In a video, Goshka explains the project and you see behind the scenes at her studio. Then, in a series of audio features, Goshka explains the project in detail, including how the Roman Temple of Mithras beneath the gallery was a source of inspiration for her work, how she addressed Mithraism and mythology through her installation, and why she chose particular works from the Imperial War Museum in London to show alongside her dramatic cave sculptures.