Exhibition
GOSHKA MACUGA: THE BLOOMBERG COMMISSION - Whitechapel Gallery
A new site specific artwork inspired by Picasso’s Guernica coming to the Whitechapel Gallery in 1939 on its first and only visit to the UK. London-based Polish artist Goshka Macuga is widely acclaimed for her sculptural installations of historic objects and documents. Creating complex networks of reference they are poignant reminders of the profound relation between aesthetics and politics. For this, the first in a series of year-long artists’ commissions, Macuga has conceived a unique venue for public gatherings which references a key moment in the Whitechapel Gallery’s history. In 1939 the Gallery hosted Picasso’s Guernica, an outcry against Fascist war atrocities, to drum up support for the Republican forces fighting in Spain.
In 1955 Nelson Rockefeller commissioned a life- size tapestry of Picasso’s painting. Some thirty years later this was lent to the United Nations Headquarters in New York where it has hung ever since outside the Security Council. Offered as a deterrent to war, in 2003 the tapestry was covered by a blue curtain in front of which Colin Powell delivered his fateful speech on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The room has been designed to accommodate meetings, discussions and debates around a central table, with Guernica once again as a backdrop. Groups are invited to organise these events free of charge during opening hours.
For advanced booking please
