Margarita Gluzberg in-conversation with Liza Dimbleby

Margarita Gluzberg’s work often explores the tensions and reciprocal interplay between the past and the present, memory recall and recurring fiction, and the politics of desire. She is fascinated with surface reality and material manifestations of consumer culture, and has a multi-faceted approach to image-making and production of meaning. Her practice, ranging from drawing, photography and performance to sound and film installation, draws upon historical events, semi-biographical stories, and eclectic cultural references to create visually charged environments that summon memories of the past and negotiate aspects of contemporary existence.  Dominik Czechowski, Curator of In Paradise, Pushkin House, London, 2019.

Born in Moscow, Margarita Gluzberg has lived in London since 1979.  She studied at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford and the Royal College of Art. Over the last two decades, her work has been presented at major contemporary art spaces that include the MAC/VAL, Paris; CAC, Vilnius; Rooseum, Malmö; KAdE Kunsthal, The Netherlands; Lunds Konsthall, Lund; British School, Rome (where she was a Wingate Scholar); Drawing Room, London; and Site Gallery, Sheffield.  In 2016 her Wellcome Trust project Rock On Bones, a series of multi-media Performance Lectures, was staged at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill; Performance Studio, London; and the Royal College of Art. Her most recent solo exhibition In Paradise, took place at Pushkin House, London. Gluzberg has had an extensive teaching career – most recently the Royal College of Art, where she was Reader in Contemporary Visual Production for many years. She became Senior Lecturer at the Royal Academy Schools in 2018.

Cinema Experiments: Central Section & Polar (installation view) - Margarita Gluzberg
Cinema Experiments: Central Section & Polar (installation view)
Margarita Gluzberg, 2019, graphite on paper, both 145x185cm
© Margarita Gluzberg, photo credit Thierry Bal, Courtesy of the artist