
Magali Reus
Leaves (Shell Drake, November), 2015

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 from her pieces, however, she riddles them 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, for example, Reus presented refrigerator-like forms, devoid of doors and revealing interiors emptied of everything except for 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.


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 from her pieces, however, she riddles them 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, for example, Reus presented refrigerator-like forms, devoid of doors and revealing interiors emptied of everything except for 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.