Born 1989 in Poznań, Poland
Lives and works in Paris, France and Düsseldorf, Germany
Mikołaj Sobczak works in the fields of video and painting; performative forms of expression are also an essential element of his artistic practice, often collaborating with German artist Nicholas Grafia. At the centre of Mikołaj Sobczak‘s artistic practice is the depiction of everyday scenes as well as the creation of alternative historical images; in his surreal, collaged pictorial narratives he inserts protagonists from queer and transgender activism and countercultural emancipatory movements.
Sobczak studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in Miroslaw Balka‘s Studio for Spatial Activities, was a scholarship holder at the Berlin University of the Arts, and graduated as a Masters student in 2019 at the Kunstakademie Münster. Mikołaj Sobczak will have institutional solo exhibitions at Jester - Flanders Arts Institute, Genk, Belgium in 2024 and at Salzburger Kunstverein, Austria in 2025. Recent exhibitions include Ludwig Forum, Aachen (2023); Kunsthalle Münster (2022-2023); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2021); MUDAM, Luxembourg (2021) and Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2020). Works by Sobczak and Nicholas Grafia were purchased by the Stiftung Junge Kunst of the Friends of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen as part of the 2019 graduate exhibition of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
Sobczak’s works are held in the collections of Moderna Museet, Stockholm;Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; The National Museum, Gdańsk; Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko-Biała and Galeria Arsenał, Białystok.
In 2021, Sobczak was awarded Poland‘s most prestigious art prize, the Paszport Polityk. He was an artist-in-residence at the Rijksakadmie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam (2021-2023) and from September 2023. Until February 2024 Sobczak was participating in the biannual residency program with Art Explora - Cité internationale des arts in Paris.