Goshka Macuga

“Madness and Ritual” is the title of Goshka Macuga's fourth exhibition at Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle. This exhibition seeks to put the mental state of the art world to the test and subjects the gray area between madness and mental health to close examination.

On the occasion of the 8th Berlin Biennale, Goshka Macuga has taken on a new genre by staging a play for theater. Another play sparked Macuga's project: "Hamburg Conversations on Art and Culture," penned by the renowned art historian Aby Warburg (1866–1929) for a family reunion, is a comedy exploring a dispute between the conservative and the radical wing of the art scene at the time.

Warburg’s material prompted Goshka Macuga to write an amusing analysis of today's art world. Her play, performed in Berlin – consisting in equal parts of choreography, lecture, and performance – is the inspirational basis for the exhibition at Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle. Many of the works on view are closely connected to the performed play; the exhibition emphasizes the medium of collage, which takes on two- and three-dimensional forms and culminates in a multicolored tapestry. The exhibition shows sculptures of the protagonists and a new video work which emerged from recordings of the play. Goshka Macuga's works cannot be pinned down to a single medium, but rather a method which is connected to thorough research and which, therefore, frequently corresponds to historical and curatorial approaches.