A publication that celebrates the work created by the artist Magali Reus for her second major US show, A Sentence in Soil, held at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas, between 14 May – 9 October 2022. The exhibition is an installation of new work that examines how the forms of simple, recognisable objects can generate an immediate chain of associations when dislocated from their original functions. Sculptures that explore, expand upon, and contradict the physical properties and cultural baggage of its original source. Working in close collaboration with the artist and curator Catherine Craft, this book divides the content between two halves. Utilising two separate Swiss-bound book blocks, fixed within the textured, recycled board cover. This material is more often used for packaging purposes, referenced through the presence of the barcode on the spine of the book.

A collectible publication on Magali Reus’ thinking of objecthood.

Renowned for her particular take on what contemporary sculpture can be and express, Magali Reus draws on a vast range of formal influences and references, from the domestic to the industrial, the functional to the decorative, creating works that evolve as a fascinating accumulation and layering of visual details. 

Designed by Irma Boom, one of the most prestigious graphic designers active today, this artist’s book offers a unique approach to art making through the unveiling of the sources, visual imagery, and connections that gave birth to the realization of three emblematic series by Magali Reus: “Dearest,” 2018; “Empty Every Night,” 2019; and “Settings,” 2019–2021. Conceived as a space where the viewer can take their time to get a closer, more intimate connection to her work, the publication alternates views of the works, close–up details, and various materials—from a 3D technical rendering and production calculations to mock ups, samples, and research photography. Sharing her production, process, and research archive, Reus allows the reader to decipher the circulation of motifs from one medium to another, her specific take on the ideas of hierarchy, representation, and systems of production, and how she explores the tensions between nature, technology, and the impact of postindustrial human activity. The book gives full credit to her ongoing thinking on objecthood and how the objects and forms she creates take on a strange, disobedient agency. Made of three separate volumes, featuring different paper and taped together, this collectible publication is itself a powerful object.

Three contributions by art critic and curator Anthony Huberman (“Leather and Logistics”), writer and art historian Philomena Epps (“The Other Hour”), and artist and writer Sean Burns (“A Love Affair”) analyze the artist’s practice through art historical and literary perspectives.

This publication accompanies two exhibitions of recent sculptural work by the artist Magali Reus: “Hot Cottons” (2017–18) at Bergen Kunsthall and “As mist, description,” (2018) at the South London Gallery. Featuring an essay by writer and curator Laura Mclean-Ferris and a poetic response by writer and poet Quinn Latimer as well as a fully illustrated overview of Reus’s work, this catalogue provides an in-depth exploration of the artist’s recent sculptural practice.

Producing a sculptural language that is both familiar yet unlocatable Reus draws heavily on the past and present landscape of industry and fabrication, creating forms using a plethora of materials that include: mesh, jesmonite, cotton, steel, rubber, leather. Interested in collaborative processes of making, from virtual design to handmade fabrication, Reus combines sculptural games with material explorations. Everyday materials are transformed with powder blues, pastel greens, and dirty beiges. Reus’s sculptures appear in a state of transition, in progress, mid-function, restored, or destroyed. Autographs of famous athletes, graphics from an iconic Norwegian matchbox, forms reminiscent of fire extinguishers, decorative ironwork, or modular frameworks, all feature in Reus’s sculptures transforming defined materials into newly undefinable objects. Working with factories in Holland to develop specific fabrics, using complex molding and weaving techniques, all the while drawing on the language of digital design Reus navigates the contemporary post-industrial moment with playful unease, creating objects with familiar yet fluid identities.