Goshka Macuga, born in Warsaw in 1967, is among the most acclaimed contemporary visual artists. Her practice is characterised by reflections on history, politics, art and the role of the artist in society. Macuga’s childhood and youth were shaped by the communist era, an experience that left a lasting mark on her social sensitivity and her interest in themes of political oppression, censorship and the shaping of culture by ideology. As she has acknowledged in an interview, her upbringing in communist Poland influenced her view of art as a tool for social change and of the artist as a “soul engineer”, a notion rooted in communist discourse.

In 1989, shortly before the collapse of communism in Poland, Macuga moved to London, where she studied at two prestigious art schools: first at Central Saint Martins and later at Goldsmiths College, both centres of progressive artistic experimentation. Goldsmiths, renowned for its emphasis on conceptual and socially engaged art, played a particularly formative role in her development. It was there that she began working with archives and documentation, which became the foundation of her later artistic projects.

The 1990s were a period of intense artistic exploration for Macuga. In her early works, she frequently combined media such as sculpture, photography and installation. Much of her practice at this time was concerned with political and social history and with probing the boundaries between art and reality. Towards the end of the decade, another key element entered her work: the inclusion of works by other artists. With these she embarked on complex, multi-layered dialogues. It was not so much a matter of searching for new meanings or interpretations as of disrupting conventions of display. By repositioning these works, whether as part of a wallpaper or within the staged interior of a country house, she transformed them into props that prompted viewers to reflect on the mechanisms shaping visual perception. Her practice sought to deconstruct the power of images, both constructed by viewers themselves and reinforced by cultural institutions. This “order of art”, once displaced into unexpected settings, revealed illusion rather than the extraordinary to which images and their makers aspired. In later projects, the role of space itself became increasingly significant, and her interventions grew ever more elaborate.

In 2007, a new strand appeared in one of Macuga’s most intriguing works, “What’s in a Name”. Here she entered a world of esotericism and mystery, exploring the stories of Helena Blavatsky, co-founder of the Theosophical Society, and the eighteenth-century composer Giuseppe Tartini, who claimed to have been haunted by Satan. The installation combined archival photographs, sculptures and objects, and examined the phenomenon of sleep as a metaphor for the creative process and inspiration. In this work, Macuga demonstrated her sustained interest in both mysticism and the exploratory research that underpins her artistic practice.

A defining moment in Goshka Macuga’s career came with her nomination for the Turner Prize in 2008, when she became the first Polish woman in the history of the award to receive this distinction. The Turner Prize, one of the United Kingdom’s most prestigious honours in the visual arts, is awarded annually to artists under the age of fifty whose work demonstrates innovation and originality. Macuga was nominated for her exhibition at Tate Britain, where she presented an installation that drew on the Tate archives and incorporated works by other artists to construct a new narrative around the relationship between nature and culture.

In 2009, Macuga created one of her most recognisable installations, “The Nature of the Beast”, in which she explored the relationship between art and politics. At its centre stood a tapestry depicting Pablo Picasso’s famous “Guernica”, a reproduction of which had long hung at the United Nations in New York. In 2003, during a speech in which Colin Powell argued for the invasion of Iraq, the tapestry was concealed from view. In her installation, Macuga drew together political events and aesthetic form, drawing attention to the power of art within the context of global political decision-making.

The 2019 installation “I Am Become Death”, presented at Kunsthalle Basel, examined the impact of war and neo-colonialism on contemporary politics. Macuga juxtaposed Aby Warburg’s photographs of Hopi Indians with images of an American veteran of the Vietnam War. The installation also incorporated sculpture inspired by the work of Robert Morris. Although rooted in historical reconstruction, the piece engaged above all with the present, interrogating the mechanisms of society. In much of her work, Macuga also reflects on the political agency of art, considering themes of violence, power and colonial relations that continue to shape present-day conflicts.

Although she has lived and worked in London for many years, Macuga has never lost her connection with Poland. She frequently returns, both personally and artistically, through projects that engage with Polish history and heritage. Her practice remains deeply rooted in the Polish political experience, including contemporary developments. One striking example is her 2018 work “Women’s Strike”, in which she re-embedded the now-iconic logo from the eighteenth-century tradition of silhouette portraiture, superimposing it on the graphic form of a bust medallion. In doing so, she situated the work within a longer tradition of the struggle for freedom. Earlier, in 2011, during a solo exhibition at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, she used archival materials to demonstrate the persistence of censorship mechanisms that continued to constrain artistic freedom in Poland even after the fall of communism.

Goshka Macuga is committed to archival and social research, which underpins her interdisciplinary projects. Her practice often operates at the intersection of art, history and sociology, and she assumes a variety of roles in her work: artist, curator and researcher of history. She is also noted for her openness to collaboration with other artists, architects and academics.

After 2011, Macuga’s career developed rapidly and her work gained increasing recognition, becoming at the same time more overtly political and more directly engaged with the present. Combining historical research, political commentary and interdisciplinary artistic techniques, she continued her archival investigations, constructing narratives that questioned traditional interpretations of history.

Today Macuga is recognised as one of the most significant contemporary artists. Her works have been exhibited in major galleries and museums across the world, including Tate Britain in London, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago. Her artistic journey exemplifies a consistent and thoughtful career, one that draws on both personal experiences and global historical and political narratives.

In 2012, Macuga was invited to participate in dOCUMENTA (13), where her installations were shown in both Kassel (Germany) and Kabul (Afghanistan). Her work “Of what is, that it is; of what is not, that it is not” took the form of a monumental tapestry interweaving political and historical themes, and reflected her sustained interest in the impact of political ideologies on cultural memory, a theme that recurs in her later projects.

Another major presentation followed in 2014 at the Berlin Biennale, where she exhibited “Preparatory Notes”, continuing her investigation into the role of performance and demonstration in society. Here Macuga examined how public demonstrations contribute to the shaping of national and political identity.

This trajectory continued with her solo exhibition “Time as Fabric” at the New Museum in New York in 2016. The show highlighted her capacity to weave disparate historical moments and figures into a unified narrative, drawing on archives, history and personal memory. Also in 2016, at the Fondazione Prada in Milan, Macuga presented “To the Son of Man Who Ate the Scroll”, an installation exploring the relationship between humanity, history and technology. At its centre was an android reciting texts about the end of humanity, drawn from religious, philosophical and literary sources. The work revisited the development of technology and its implications for the future of humanity, while simultaneously engaging with past narratives and prophecies. The use of the android as a medium compelled viewers to reflect on the threats posed by artificial intelligence and automation.

In recent years, Macuga has continued to produce large-scale works addressing contemporary social, political and environmental issues while remaining deeply anchored in history. In 2019, she exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and in 2021 she created GONOGO, a project exploring post-pandemic anxieties and the recurring question of humanity’s future in a virtual space. That same year, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, in recognition of her significant contribution to contemporary art.

Her monumental tapestry “From Gondwana to Endangered, Who is the Devil Now?” (2020) responded to the catastrophic wildfires in Australia and California. Woven in Flanders, a region renowned for its historic weaving traditions, the work was executed in wool, cotton and synthetic fibres. It depicts a forest in flames, surrounded by protesters dressed as animals. By employing animal symbolism, Macuga highlighted the complexity of human nature while simultaneously addressing environmental activism and the climate crisis. Her mastery in uniting traditional weaving techniques with urgent contemporary themes is powerfully evident in this work.

In 2024, Macuga created “Born From Stone” at Bloomberg SPACE in London, transforming the gallery into an immersive environment resembling a prehistoric cave filled with stalagmites and stalactites. The project was inspired by the discovery of the Roman temple of Mithras in London, which led the artist to reflect on the cave as a site of refuge and safety. The installation was further enriched by the inclusion of three paintings from the Imperial War Museum depicting the destruction of London during the Second World War. This juxtaposition created a powerful contrast between the protective symbolism of the cave and the devastation of war: between destruction and creation.

Together with earlier works, “Born From Stone” underscores Macuga’s ability to merge contemporary themes with historical references. By drawing on traditional techniques such as weaving, while at the same time engaging with urgent present-day concerns, she constructs new visual narratives that compel viewers to reflect on the challenges confronting the world today.

Many of Macuga’s works are held in international collections; one notable example is “Death of Marxism, Women of All Lands Unite” (2013) in The Broad Museum, Los Angeles. In this tapestry, Macuga fuses aesthetic and political concerns, employing the traditional medium of fabric to tell a contemporary story dense with symbolism drawn from Marxism, feminism and the reinterpretation of history. The work depicts Karl Marx’s tomb in London surrounded by women, immediately invoking the famous slogan “Proletarians of all countries, unite”, which Macuga transforms into “Women of all countries, unite”. In so doing, she shifts the focus from class struggle to feminist struggle.

At the centre of the composition stands Marx’s tombstone, an icon of Marxist thought and a symbol of the fight for workers’ rights. Around it women are depicted in diverse poses, ranging from fully clothed to partially nude, suggesting the variety of women’s experiences and roles in society. Each figure may be read as a symbol of a different form of emancipation: from physical freedom to ideological and social liberation. By altering the slogan to “Women of all Lands Unite”, Macuga critiques Marxism, which, despite its emancipatory rhetoric, did little to change women’s condition in society. Here she points instead to the need for a broader revolution, one that reimagines social revolution as a gender revolution.

Tapestry is a medium that Macuga frequently employs, not only because of its roots in European tradition and art history but also for its narrative potential. Historically, tapestries were used to recount dynastic triumphs and great historical events. By adopting this form, Macuga both alludes to tradition and deconstructs it. Works such as “Death of Marxism, Women of All Lands Unite” challenge conventional narratives and pose questions about authorship: who tells history, and how?

It is equally significant that tapestry was historically associated with aristocracy and elite patronage. This adds a note of irony to Macuga’s depiction of Marx’s tomb – the founder of anti-capitalist theory – in such a luxurious medium. By employing this material, she highlights the contradiction between form and content: the sumptuous medium of tapestry on the one hand, and, on the other, the critique of exploitation and marginalisation.

The work is deliberately ambiguous and ironic. On one level, it can be read as a critique of Marxism for excluding the struggle for women’s rights from its emancipatory claims. On another, it represents a revision and extension of Marxist thought, pointing out that class struggle cannot be separated from the fight for gender equality. More broadly, Macuga appears to pose a fundamental question: is social revolution, in its traditional form, dead? Can it still be of use, or even possible today? Or must it be reconceived as a new kind of revolution, one that includes the struggles of women and other marginalised groups? In this way, “Death of Marxism, Women of All Lands Unite” operates both as critical commentary and as an invitation to reflect on contemporary forms of resistance and struggle.

Another striking aspect is the attitude of the women depicted in the tapestry, their poses derived from Miroslav Tichý’s iconic photographs. Some make gestures that can be read as acts of tenderness towards the tombstone; one woman, for example, is shown cleaning the monument. Such gestures may suggest mourning, but they also serve to “purify” Marx’s legacy, reworking his ideas within a new, more inclusive context.

Macuga frequently weaves humour and irony into her work, and “Death of Marxism, Women of All Lands Unite” is no exception. The juxtaposition of clothed and nude women, together with the staging of a picnic beside Marx’s grave, produces a surreal and humorous effect. Yet this is humour with intent: it critiques rigid ideologies and simplistic solutions that too often neglect the complexities of gender and identity.

Goshka Macuga, “Death of Marxism, Women of All Lands Unite”, 2013, inv. no. F-MACU-2014.016, tapestry, 558.8 × 288.6 cm, The Broad Museum, Los Angeles