Kabinett der Abstrakten
Goshka Macuga's Kabinett der Abstrakten, 2003 presents a micro-site for avant garde display that proposes the existence of other possibilities. Based on El Lissitzky's project of 1926 when the constructivist artist and designer created a room he called the Kabinett der Abstrakten (cabinet for abstract art) at the Internationale Kunstausstellung in Dresden which presented works by artists such as Picasso, Leger and Mondrian at a time when no other European museums were showing them. Macuga's work unearths this historical relationship between the museum and the avant-garde, and here becomes a micro-museum to display other items from the Arts Council Collection: mini 'curio cabinets' made by contemporary artists. It suggests the dialogues that surround the nature of 'public' art collecting. It also announces a new and developing formal partnership between Leeds Art Gallery and the Arts Council Collection.