THE HAGUE.- KM21 is presenting a unique project by Magali Reus in the form of a duo exhibition with designer T.A.C. Colenbrander (1841-1930), one of the founders of Art Nouveau in the Netherlands. In Parallel Bones, Reus’ own work shares a space with pieces by Colenbrander from the museum’s collection, including rugs, rug designs, plates, vases and samples in biscuit that served as examples for pottery painters. The items are being displayed in an unconventional manner, with works and objects that normally stand upright shown, for example, at a 90-degree angle to special display modules that Reus has made using 3D scans. She has also produced several new works specially for the exhibition, with visual references to Colenbrander motifs, including the Clementine Series. Reus’ sculptures and installations enter into a playful dialogue with around 70 items designed by Colenbrander, many of which have never before been exhibited. In addition, during Parallel Bones, which runs from 2 November 2024 to 9 March 2025, four sculptures by Reus are on display in the entrance hall of neighbouring Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
“It’s amazing how Magali has brought these items from the collection to life with her work. By showing the works and objects in this way, visitors will also get to see them from unexpected angles, allowing you perspectives you wouldn’t normally have. At the same time, the objects seem stubborn and misbehaving, they become proudly idiosyncratic, there purely to be admired for what they are rather than what they are for.” – Yasmijn Jarram, curator KM21
Jam jar and lamppost
Magali Reus often bases her work on real objects: an empty jam jar or a lamppost, for example. With her intuitive approach to materials, and her hyper-precise composition and finishing, Reus Rus puts a new twist on the properties of the objects and the way we commonly relate to them. By physically transforming or (sometimes literally) magnifying them, Reus liberates the objects from their original function. Despite their sleek appearance, the works are also poetic and humorous. Reus combines elements we associate with handicrafts, such as wicker baskets and embroidered baker’s couches, with technologically manufactured display modules to create absurd hybrid ‘things’.
Colenbrander: biscuit samples and early abstraction
Reus has admired the work of designer T.A.C. Colenbrander for many years. He is regarded as one of the founders of Dutch Art Nouveau, and lived for much of his life in The Hague. Colenbrander’s progressive, capricious and colourful motifs were in line with a new form language that flourished in the late nineteenth century, reintroducing nature as a basic form – an early form of abstraction. Colenbrander made a large number of models in biscuit, to which he applied a range of motifs in pencil and watercolours. He gave each one a name, such as ‘strawberry’, ‘lace’, ‘strong’, ‘twist’, ‘effervescent’ or ‘tangled’.
Magali Reus
Magali Reus (b. 1981, The Hague), who studied at Goldsmith’s College in London and the Rijksakademie art college in Amsterdam, now lives and works in London. She has recently had solo exhibitions at Museum Kurhaus Kleve; Museo del Novecento, Milan; Kunsthalle Bratislava; Museum Dhondt Dhaenens, Sint-Marten-Latem; Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas; South London Gallery; Bergen Kunsthall and Kunstmuseum St. Gallen. In 2015 she won the Prix de Rome, and was shortlisted for the Hepworth Prize for Sculpture in 2018. She won the Arnaldo Pomodoro Sculpture Prize in 2024. Reus’ work features in the collections of Tate, London; Lafayette Anticipation, Paris; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and others.
