Andrew Kreps Gallery is delighted to present, When ice melts in a glass of water, an exhibition of new works by Goshka Macuga at its 22 Cortlandt Alley location.
Exploring painting, sculpture, and installation, the exhibition delves into the concept of landscape as a foundational theme, reflecting on its enduring cycle of destruction and regeneration—impacted by human activity, natural disasters, and inherent entropy. Landscape emerges as a symbol of resilience and rebirth, embodying both order and disorder.
The inquiry begins with a new series of paintings portraying man-made spectacles of warfare and ecological devastation, illustrating how destruction is a lasting hallmark of human evolution. Macuga uses painting to transform these events into a symbolic language—a testament to the perpetual interplay between creation and destruction in our shared narrative. The artwork is in turn a vehicle for transformation, as the depiction of destruction becomes an act of creation.
Tapestry, a central element of Macuga’s work, assumes new roles in this exhibition. A series of soft sculptures appropriate historical tapestries, creating new forms through the transformation of existing materials. Additionally, wall-based reliefs are crafted from detailed three-dimensional scans of Macuga’s jacquard tapestries, serving as templates for various treatments including recasting, painting, and growth in mycelium. These pieces are finished in colors drawn from historic locations marked by destruction and sites connected to mankind’s aspirations, such as space exploration missions to Mars or the Moon.
This is Goshka Macuga’s fifth exhibition with the gallery. Earlier this year, Macuga was elected as a member of the Royal Academy, London. In 2021, Macuga was selected as a finalist for the Fourth Plinth Commission, London, and In 2019, Macuga was commissioned to make a large-scale tapestry for the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The work re-stages a well-known photograph of Andre Malraux taken in 1954, featuring Macuga surrounded by images that are intrinsically linked to MoMA’s history and collection. Past solo exhibitions include In Flux, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, 2022 and MUSAC, León, Spain, 2021, Stairway to Nowhere, Kestnergesselchaft, Hannover, 2019, What Was I ?, Prada Rong Zhai, Shanghai, 2019, Intellectual Co-operation, Neues Museum, Nüremberg, Germany, 2018, To the Son of Man Who Ate the Scroll, Fondazione Prada, Milan, 2016, Now this, is this the end... the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end? (part 1), Schinkel Pavilion, Berlin, 2016 Time as Fabric, New Museum, New York, 2016, Exhibit A, MCA Chicago, 2012, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland, 2011, It Broke from Within, Walker Arts Centre, Minneapolis, 2011, The Bloomberg Commission, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK, 2009, I Am Become Death, Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland, 2009, and Objects in Relation, Tate Britain, London, 2007.
Recent group exhibitions include ImPOSSIBLE, Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, Germany, 2024, Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries, Fondazione Prada, Milan, 2023-4, HARD/SOFT: Textiles and Ceramics in Contemporary Art, Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), Vienna, 2023 Public Matters: Contemporary Art in the Belvedere Garden, Vienna, Austria, 2023, Everybody Talks About the Weather, Fondazione Prada, Venice, 2023, Hollow Earth: Art, Caves & The Subterranean Imaginary, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, 2022, Supernatural, Kunsthalle Tubingen, Germany 2020, and Like Life: Sculpture, Colour and the Body (1300-Now), The Met Breuer, New York 2018. Macuga was included in Documenta 2012 and nominated for the Turner Prize in 2008.
