Goshka Macuga (part 1)
Now this, is this the end... the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?
3. June – 28. June 2016
Opening: 29. July 14:11

Goshka Macuga’s show at Schinkel Pavillon is a solo-exhibition in two parts. Macuga’s recent research has reflected on humanity’s concern with its own demise, in this end-time scenario, Macuga turns to the art of rhetoric and artificial memory as intricately linked tools for the organization, preservation and advancement of human knowledge.

The first part of the exhibition opens with a specially commissioned selection of configurations from the series ‘International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation’(IIIC). Bronze works inhabit the space, the heads of recognizable figures such as Einstein, Freud and Frankenstein’s monster are connected as if they were molecular structures. Referring to the IIIC, a post-war advisory body for the League of Nations promoting intellectual exchange between scientists, researchers, teachers, artists and other cultural figures; Macuga’s structures explore the art of rhetoric and the gesture of intellectual exchange (via the writing of conversations and speeches) as tools in forming opinions and in generating and communicating knowledge.

On the lower ground floor of the Schinkel Pavillon, the Schinkel Klause, Macuga presents ‘Before the Beginning and After the End’. A long industrial table displaying a scroll illustrated with biro drawings, its surface covered with artworks and objects as if part of a scientific study. Each drawing has been made by a computational system – ‘Paul-n’; the scroll developed by Macuga in collaboration with Patrick Tresset, is covered with the computer’s own iterations of different narratives of creation, from the big bang to Adam and Eve.

Goshka Macuga was born in Warsaw and lives and works in London.