Magdalena Kita: Californication

Goodbye dead grey towels

The motifs of the Polish-German artist Magdalena Kita, who prints them on bath towels, are remotely reminiscent of the obsessive works of Dorothy Iannone. However, Magdalena Kita goes a little further with her colourful and equally erotic motifs. In her first publication "Californication", presented here, she not only brings together an impressive number of different bath towels, with which she continues the naively pleasurable pictorial programme of libertarian feminism, but also the documentation of numerous public performances and TV commercials that she produced herself. In these, the bath towels are presented by young, crisp beachgoers lounging on them in the sun or taking them for a walk on the beach. The pictorial narratives of the towels function like the Trojan Horse, showing a lot without giving anything away: The complex, erotically charged motifs give viewers no clues about social behaviour, neither about the lifestyle nor, more specifically, about the sex and gender of the bath towel wearers. The works are ironic reflections of contemporary social life, as celebrated by the male protagonists on LA's beaches in a style-defining manner. In 2016, Magdalena Kita was awarded the Van Bommel Van Dam Prize by the museum of the same name in Venlo, Netherlands.

Exhibition:
"Magdalena Kita winner of Van Bommel Van Dam Prize 2016", Museum van Bommel van Dam, Venlo, 15/10 - 31/12/2016