Magda Michalska

Magda, art historian and Italianist, she writes about art because she cannot make it herself. She loves committed and political artists like Ai Weiwei or the Futurists; like Joseph Beuys she believes that art can change us and we can change the world.

Stories By Magda Michalska

dailyart

First of May Celebrations in Painting
By Magda MichalskaMay 1, 2019
Happy May 1st to all workers and to all who have fought and still fight for their rights. I hope you’ll celebrate by doing nothing and chilling (hopefully outdoors, wishing everyone a sunny day!). First of...
Artist

William Strang: Portraitist, Printmaker, Scotsman
By Magda MichalskaApril 27, 2019
I used to live in Scotland and when I stumble upon a Scottish artist I’d had no idea about before, I really want to share their art with you. William Strang was a comprehensive artist with...
dailyart

Egg Art 2019 Easter Edition
By Magda MichalskaApril 20, 2019
Two years ago I wrote an Easter article about eggs and what to do with all the remaining ones after the holidays. This year I decided to take up this topic again, since eggs are more...
21st century

Alec Soth’s American Landscapes, Global Interiors
By Magda MichalskaApril 13, 2019
Alec Soth is a contemporary American photographer who so far has specialized in capturing his native US. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he travelled across all states to meet and photograph Americans and their surroundings. In his...
20th century

Kandinsky’s Inspiration? Nature, Spirituality and Other Artists
By Magda MichalskaApril 11, 2019
Wassily Kandinsky: a lawyer turned painter, a painter turned lecturer, a green-fingered man for whom a house with garden was a curse (because instead of working he would spend hours digging and sowing). Rightly considered one...
20th century

Life-Size Dolls, Ropes and Erotic Photography: Scandalous World of Hans Bellmer
By Magda MichalskaApril 8, 2019
“I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me”, said Terence, Roman playwright sometime in the 2nd century BC. I think that art and what inspired what you will see below, is exactly...
20th century

Kiki Smith’s Bodies as Instruments of Perception and Travel
By Magda MichalskaApril 6, 2019
It seems Kiki Smith didn’t have much choice when deciding on who to become in the future because art just flows in her veins: her father Tony Smith was a sculptor, her mother, Jane Lawrence Smith,...
Bodies And Erotic Art

Sylvia Sleigh. A Slay Girl Who Rocked Male Portraiture
By Magda MichalskaApril 2, 2019
I called Sylvia Sleigh a slay girl because she was beautiful inside out. Brave and independent, she pursued her own figurative style which by many was regarded as outmoded in the years of Pop Art dominance....
Artist

Huguette Caland’s Linear Eroticism
By Magda MichalskaMarch 26, 2019
Some see her art as sexualized. I’d rather see Huguette Caland’s linear eroticism, which shifts between abstraction and figuration, as an exploration of intimacy of human bodies and relationships. She might be one of the most brilliant...
Artist

More than a Stone. Representation of the Kaaba by Hamra Abbas
By Magda MichalskaMarch 14, 2019
The 17th century world map from an Ottoman book on the discovery of the Americas “Tarih-i Hind-i Garbi” (“History of the West Indies”) points Mecca and the Kaaba as the centre of the world. Indeed, the...