London Gallery Exhibits Bloomberg Commission

London-based Polish artist Goshka Macuga is widely acclaimed for her sculptural installations of artefacts and photographs, derived from art history, politics and anthropology. The artist focuses on a key moment in the history of the Whitechapel Gallery: the presentation of Picasso’s Guernica in 1939.

Organised in collaboration with the Stepney Trade Union Council in east London to raise awareness of the Spanish Civil War, the suggested price of entry was a pair of boots, left underneath the work, to be sent to the Republicans in Spain. Forming the centrepiece of Macuga’s installation is a life-size tapestry of Guernica.

Commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller in 1955 it was created, in collaboration with Picasso, by weaver Jacqueline de la Baume Durrbach, of the great Durrbach Atelier in Paris. In 1985, Mrs Nelson Rockefeller lent the tapestry to the United Nations Headquarters in New York in memory of her husband who was present at the founding of the organisation, to offer a deterrent to war. It has hung ever since outside the United Nations Security Council.

Macuga’s project draws connections across historic and contemporary world affairs, their protagonists and the cultural ripple effects they have triggered. 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. -- www.whitechapelgallery.org