Goshka Macuga, Non-Consensual Act (in progress), 2013. Fig. Courtesy of the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York.
Goshka Macuga's work method is often referred to as cultural archaeology as well as being compared to detective work. While researching for her previous project for dOCUMENTA(13), Macuga visited the Afghan Film Archive in Kabul and learned about their shaky operation during the Taliban era. After extensive email correspondence with an Afghan mediator, Macuga was able to receive a package of 35mm cut-offs. It turned out that the material consisting of 19 separate film rolls depicted sexually explicit scenes censored from foreign and Afghan films.
Following up on the matter, for her newly commissioned works presented at Index – The Swedish Art Foundation in co-production with BAC – Baltic Art Center, Visby, Macuga proposed to re-edit and re-contextualize the censored footage. The resulting collected footage deals with the level of intimacy as it is perceived in the Afghan culture and in the artist’s own eyes. The project complements on the artist’s process of how she managed to get the material to work with. The display construes a dialogue with the archival material and is further presented in the forms of a film, prints and documents. Included in the exhibition are excerpts of correspondence uncovering the obstacles, contradictions and opportunities that arose in approaching the material under scrutiny.
Non - Consensual Act (in progress) is a comparative study of different perspectives on knowledge formation and understanding as experienced in the Afghan and Western cultures. Goshka Macuga, as she often assumes the role of a scientist, once again examines the ideological ties between exhibitions and museums, their political and social roles in contemporary practices of exhibition making.
Born in Poland in 1967, Goshka Macuga lives and works in London since 1989. She has exhibited internationally in solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2012),Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2011), Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2011), Whitechapel Gallery, London (2010), Kunsthalle Basel (2009), and Tate Britain, London (2007). Macuga’s work was also included in dOCUMENTA (13) (2012), the 53rd Venice Biennial (2009), the 5th Berlin Biennial (2008) and the Liverpool Biennial (2006). In 2008 she was nominated for the prestigiousTurner Prize contemporary art award.
Non-Consensual Act (in progress) was co-commissioned by Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation and BAC – Baltic Art Center, Visby. The exhibition is kindly supported by the Polish Institute Stockholm, Andrew Kreps Gallery and The Swedish Arts Grants Committee.
Source: Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation
Edited by E.M., 03.01.2014