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Magdalena Kita: Californication
Texts (English) by Gia Edzgveradze, Tytus Klepacz, Thomas W. Kuhn, Matthew Licht, Elena Malzew, JL Murtaugh, Noemi Smolik, conversation between Marina Pinsky & Alex Wisse, and a foreword by Catherine G. Wagley
184 p with 108 coloured illustrations
210 × 130 mm, clothbound and embossed
ISBN 978-3-86442-192-1
Goodbye dead grey towels
Polish-German artist Magdalena Kita’s motifs, printed on bath towels, are vaguely reminiscent of the obsessive works by Dorothy Iannone. However, Magdalena Kita goes a bit further with her colorful and equally erotic motifs. With this first publication »Californication«, she not only assembles a large number of different bath towels, where she continues with the naively-lustful iconographic program of libertarian feminism, but also presents the documentation of numerous public performances and TV commercials she produced. The towels are presented by young, shapely boys sunbathing on them or parading them on the beach. The images on the towels function as Trojan horses, they show a lot without revealing anything: the complex erotically charged motifs give the viewer no clues to any social behavior, neither the lifestyle nor, more specifically, sex and gender of those holding the towels. Magdalena Kita’s works are thus ironic reflections of our current social life as perpetuated in a very particular style by the male protagonists at LA’s beaches. Now 2016 she is winner of the Van Bommel Van Dam Price of Museum van Bommel van Dam Venlo, Netherlands.
Exhibition:
Magdalena Kita winner of Van Bommel Van Dam Price 2016
Museum van Bommel van Dam, Venlo, 15/10–31/12/2016