Paolo Magagnoli

I am an art historian and art writer. My research specialisms and interests include photography and contemporary art; artists' films and video installations; documentary practices; the visual cultures of labour; the history of illustrated magazines and Australian colonial photography. For the last twenty years I have researched and taught in the fields of modern, contemporary art, and visual culture. I am particularly interested in interdisciplinary theoretical methodologies drawing from art history, sociology, and political theory.

My first monograph, Documents of Utopia: The Politics of Experimental Documentary (Columbia University Press: 2015) explores the work of contemporary artists such as Hito Steyerl, Joachim Koester, Walid Raad, Jean-Luc Moulène, and Anri Sala. I have published numerous book chapters, peer-reviewed articles and exhibition catalogue essays. My articles have been published in leading international journals such as Oxford Art Journal, Third Text, Afterall, Philosophy of Photography, Photography and Culture, Journal of Chinese Contemporary Art, and History of Photography. My writing has recenttly appeared in Labour History (2025 and 2026) and in the French open-source journal Photographica (2026).

My second monograph brings to light the forgotten histories of Australian South Sea Islanders. Between 1863 and 1907, more than 60,000 men and women from Melanesian islands were forced by trickery or fraud to work in the burgeoning sugar industry of Queensland. The history of their representation in art and visual culture has never been adequately studied. The book fills this significant gap in the scholarship. It includes a critical examination of untapped photographic archives and discusses contemporary Australian artists’ attempt to address this traumatic and often unspoken history. The monograph invigorates debates in the field of photography and visual culture studies, racial capitalism and colonial studies, Indigenous and Pacific studies, and in social and economic history.

I received a B.A. in Communication and Media and an Honours in Film Studies from the University of Bologna. I was awarded my M.A. in 2008, and my PhD in the History of Art in 2012, both from the University College London.

I welcome enquiries from potential PhD students. Research topics I would be particularly interested in supervising include: contemporary art and, in particular, documentary and screen-based practices; histories and theories of photography; histories of exhibition-making and spectatorship; colonial photography in Australia and the Asia-Pacific; the visual cultures and politics of illustrated magazines and activists' pamphlets; Marxism and the Frankfurt School thinkers; artists and curators' use of AI. Potential applicants should contact me directly to discuss their proposals.