Magali Reus

Magali Reus’ sculptural practice addresses existing common objects and systems. Physical transformation and display – typically of vessels or receivers of useful action – set the stage for objects to shed their function and enact a different image of themselves.

Reus applies a sensuous material intelligence and precise compositional grammar to coax relationships between the characteristics of objects and their systems of meaning and circulation. Combining industrial and craft materials and processes to subvert standardised fabrication chronologies and practices, her work is charismatic and evasive, at once oblique and effusive, advancing a compelling open-ended symbolism and visual language. Elements are reproduced, layered and repeated in works that are individually crafted using casting, moulding, CNC milling and metalwork techniques, pitting the slick emptiness of manufacture against the slow affective labour of handiwork.

Reus’ recent latest works have a deepened interest in ecology and systems of production, considering the tensions between constructed nature, high technology and the impact of post-industrial human activity.

Multiplication and reiteration occur repeatedly in Reus’ works, both in the sense of sculptural and photographic seriality but also as repetitive details employed to create a visual rhythm. Typefaces, artists’ books and curated exhibitions form an expanded repertoire of objects connected to a larger and more purposeful system or logic. This might be bound up with an attitude of determined disobedience, while confronting ideas of comic exaggeration or appropriation.

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Magali Reus (b.1981, Den Haag, Netherlands), lives and works in London, UK. Upcoming and recent solo exhibitions include CAPC Bordeaux, France (2027); Museum Beelden Aan Zee, Den Haag, Netherlands (2026); Kunstmuseum, Den Haag, Netherlands (2025); Our Volumes, Museum Kurhaus Kleve, Germany, Off Script, Museo del Novecento, Milan, Italy; (all 2024); Deeper Green, Kunsthalle Bratislava, Slovakia; Le Plat Principal, CAC la Synagogue de Delme, France; On Like Scenery, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium (all 2023); A sentence in soil, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas (2022); As mist, description, South London Gallery, UK (2018); Hot Cottons, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway; Night Plants, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland (both 2017); Mustard, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Quarters, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy (both 2016); Spring for a Ground, SculptureCenter, New York, USA; Particle of Inch, The Hepworth Wakefield, UK; Halted Paves, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany (all 2015).

Reus has been included in group exhibitions and screenings at Tate Britain, London, UK; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK; CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, USA; Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover, Germany; Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany; Luma Westbau, Zürich, Switzerland; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland; Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporanea, Lisbon, Portugal; De Appel, Amsterdam, Netherlands; and the British Art Show 8.

Reus was awarded the 7th edition of the Arnaldo Pomodoro Sculpture Prize in 2024, shortlisted for the Hepworth Prize for Sculpture 2018, and in 2015 was awarded The Prix de Rome.

Her work is included in international collections including Tate Collection, UK; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Centraal Museum, Utrecht, Netherlands; The Hepworth Wakefield, UK; Collection CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, United States; Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland; Frac Grand Large – Hauts-de-France; Lafayette Anticipation – Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin, Paris, France; LAM Museum, Lisse, Netherlands; Rubell Family Collection, Miami, USA; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy; Arts Council Collection, UK; Government Art Collection, London, UK; David Roberts Art Foundation, London, UK; The Perimeter, London, UK.