Magali Reus

Born 1981, The Hague, The Netherlands. Lives in London and Amsterdam.

In her sculptures, installations, and videos, Magali Reus explores the borders between the pristine and the abject, mass production and the handmade, and exterior gloss and interior messiness. Drawing from the tradition of Minimalism, she makes highly refined works from an array of industrial materials. Rather than removing all evidence of humanness, however, she riddles her pieces with small imperfections, hinting at the chaos that often lies just beneath even the most flawless-seeming surfaces.

In a series of sculptural installations inspired by kitchens and bathrooms, Reus presented refrigerator-like forms, devoid of doors and revealing interiors emptied of everything except forlorn kitchenware or spoiled food. Ovular shapes based on toilet seats were affixed to the refrigerators’ otherwise unblemished surfaces and incorporated into nearby stacks of stockpots filled with blackened muck.