MALKOVICH AND GOSHKA MACUGA MAKE A ONE OF A KIND WORK FOR W

John Malkovich is the subject of a story in W's Volume Six 2026 Art Issue, where he discusses his turn in Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine and joins artist Goshka Macuga for a one of a kind collaboration that celebrates the many roles of his five decade career. The magazine paired the actor with a Turner Prize nominee in the same week his new film reached theaters, and the pairing tells you what W thinks an actor with that many parts has become: a body of work to be arranged.

"What's Important to Us and Why?"

Malkovich frames art as a way of asking questions. In W's Art Issue he says: "Good films or plays or novels, great artwork, great music, ask a question: What's important to us and why? How do we live?"

That is a working definition from someone who has spent five decades moving between stage and film. He does not describe art as comfort or as taste. He describes it as a prompt, and the question he lands on, how do we live, is the one McDonagh's new film asks of two tired men on an island at the edge of the map.

Chris Is Weary of the Road

Wild Horse Nine is set in 1973. Malkovich plays Chris, an itinerant CIA officer, and Sam Rockwell plays Lee; the two are sent from Santiago to Easter Island shortly before the Chilean coup, dispatched by their bureau chief MJ, played by Steve Buscemi. McDonagh wrote and directed it, and it became the second film ever to shoot on Easter Island, according to Screen Daily. Searchlight set a November 6, 2026 theatrical release, with early access screenings in Los Angeles on October 30. The film is rated R, and Disney distributes it through its Searchlight Pictures label.

An Associated Press profile of Malkovich was headlined with the line that he prefers life on the road, which fits a character written as world weary from his travels. The cast also includes Parker Posey, Tom Waits and Mariana Di Girolamo, and Slashfilm's review calls Malkovich and Rockwell a great duo in McDonagh's subversive modern western. The role gives W its peg, and it gives the Art Issue story a second subject: an actor whose current part is a man who has been everywhere and is tired of it.

Goshka Macuga Weaves Photographs Into Tapestry

Goshka Macuga was born in Warsaw in 1967 and works in London. She was one of four artists nominated for the 2008 Turner Prize, and her practice runs from Jacquard woven tapestries to sculpture and robotics. For dOCUMENTA (13) in 2012 she made two large photorealistic tapestries, one shown in Kassel, Germany, and its counterpart in Kabul, Afghanistan. The New Museum in New York gave her its first New York museum presentation of her work in 2016 with Time as Fabric.

W has not said what the Malkovich collaboration looks like in the material released with the issue, and it would be a guess to say it is woven. What the credits do show is staging. The shoot lists concept and direction by gonogo.space, set design, extras casting and a production studio, with Jen Wang as writer and Sara Moonves as editor in chief. A scene built with extras and a set suggests a tableau of roles rather than a single portrait.

W Has Run This Play Before

The format is established. W's Art Issue pairs a famous face with artists, and the 2025 edition put Jennifer Lawrence on its cover as a subject conceived by three artists, Elizabeth Peyton, Philippe Parreno and Wolfgang Tillmans. In 2026 the star is a character actor with five decades of parts, and the artist works in tapestry, sculpture and robotics.

Malkovich has been an art object before. Photographer Sandro Miller's series Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters recreated famous photographs with the actor as the subject, so a gallery audience has seen him wear other people's portraits before. In W's version he is wearing his own roles.

Two things are in front of the public at once. One is a screwball spy film in theaters. The other is a magazine that treats a five decade filmography as raw material for an artist. Together they make Malkovich, at this point, more useful to culture as a question than as an answer.