Magdalena KitaCalifornication

The motifs of the Polish-German artist Magdalena Kita, which she prints on beach towels, are distantly reminiscent of the obsessive works of Dorothy Iannone. With her richly colourful and equally erotic motifs, however, Magdalena Kita goes rather further. In her first publication, „Californication“, presented here, she assembles not only an impressive number of highly varied beach towels, with which she continues the naively sensuous pictorial programme of a libertarian feminism, but also the documentation of numerous public performances and TV spots that she has produced herself. The towels are presented by young, well-toned beachgoers who lounge on them in the sun or take them for a walk along the beach. The pictorial narratives of the towels work like the Trojan horse, for they show a great deal without giving anything away: the complexly eroticised motifs offer the viewer no clues to social behaviour, neither to the lifestyle nor, more concretely, to the sex and gender of those carrying the towels. The works are ironic reflections of contemporary social life as celebrated in style-setting fashion by the male protagonists on the beaches of LA. In 2016 Magdalena Kita was awarded the Van Bommel Van Dam Prize of the museum of the same name in Venlo, the Netherlands, for these works.

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