Mala Gallery, Warsaw, 8, Zamkowy Sq.
Opening June 1, 1999, 18.00 h
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Wanda Michalak - About Men

 

Wanda Michalak - Mala Gallery, Warsaw, June 1999

 

[ B ]ODY ART. It is a term that already has gained some tradition in art and a phenomenon that many artists are still interested in. Art of performance*, video, experimental film - all these areas are particularily filled with realisations concerning human body. Photography is no exception here. There are many artists that went beyond classic understanding of nude photography long ago. They went further on creating photographic stagings with their distinct scenarios, composition, theoretical and philosophical assumptions. The stagings in which human body plays prominent role and is considered to be a basic element upon which a content and meaning of individual photographic series are being built.

This is also the case of the most recent series of Wanda Michalak called "About men". Dozen or so photographs of different sizes present naked men not only for the sake of the beauty of their young bare bodies. They are submitted to certain compositional interventions in order to create some iconic structures - kind of tableaux vivantes in which water, soap or symbolic objects like woodden wheel or metal sword are being used. But most of them are just posed nudes with dominating role of light which underscores materiality and physicality of human body. It applies equally to the figures standing still and to those photographed while making expressive and violent gestures.

The questions which perhaps are being asked by the artist may refer to the way in which we perceive these nudes - as a peculiar manifestation of the human beauty that lasts forever in our consciousness or as an attractive staging measure achieving by skillful use of chiaroscuro and perfection of the artist's craft.

A lack of unequivocal answer to this questions causes that the photographic works of Wanda Michalak although being apparently easy to perceive, do possess some widened margin of interpretation, which further strenghtens their impact.

Marek Grygiel

* e.g. exhibition of Marina Abramovic "Spirit House", Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, November 1998

 

 

Wanda Michalak - Mala Gallery, Warsaw, June 1999

 

 

Wanda Michalak
born in Warsaw, Poland

address: Elandsgracht 35, 1016 TN Amsterdam, The Netherlands
tel.: + 31-20-421 11 13, fax.: + 31-20-639 19 31

Education Carrington Polytechnic Design School, Auckland, New Zealand

Selected exhibitions:

1990 - "Portraits", Auckland
1991 - "The Four Elements" (group exhibition), Gallery De Moor, Amsterdam
1992 - "The Moor Inside Out" (photo project), De Moor, Amsterdam
1992 - "Selected Works", Gallery Spectrum, Amsterdam
1993 - "Double Exhibition", Galeria Panorama - Patio, Warszawa
1993 - "Travel Photography - Ghana", De Moor, Amsterdam
1994 - "New Horizons", Ljubljana
1994 - "Natural Connections", De Moor, Amsterdam
1995 - "Double Portraits", Amsterdam Centrum voor Fotographie (ACF)
1995 - "Portraits of Slavic Women", Hoorn
1996 - "Project 17x17x17", (group exhibition), ACF, Amsterdam
1997 - "Venus Nova", Studio "M" Bozeny Marki, Warszawa
1997 - "World Watching", Galeria FF, Lodz
1997 - "Venus Nova & Slavic Connections", Schwarzenbergplatz 4, Wien
1999 - "World Watching II", Instituto Portugues de Fotografia, Lisboa

 

See also:

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