Mikołaj Sobczak
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Mikołaj Sobczak, Die Spinne, 2026
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Installation view: House of Nisaba: New Stories of Painting (Group Show), Moderna Museet, Stockholm, May 14 – August 30, 2026Mikołaj Sobczak
Parole, Parole, Parole, 2026Oil, acrylic and collage on canvas
220 x 590 cm
86.6 x 232.3 inches -
Together with a group of friends, I travelled to Capri to research queer resistance during the time of Nazi persecution, when the island functioned as a kind of refuge, almost a mythic sanctuary for queer lives.
– Mikołaj SobczakTo listen to the artist as he speaks about his work, click here.
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In times of political radicalization, Sobczak's art invites us to engage with the construction of history.
– Merle Radtke, Kunsthalle Münster
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Works
Mikołaj Sobczak
Meeting Ancestors While Being On PrEP, 2023Oil, collage on wood and glassSigned, dated and titled verso87.5 x 22.5 cm
34.5 x 8.9 inches
Collection The Perimeter, LondonB-MSOBCZAK-.24-0010Painted on the door of an antique clock found on the streets of Paris, the work refers to an illustration for Adam Mickiewicz's Romantic poem 'Dziady', the plot of which revolves...Painted on the door of an antique clock found on the streets of Paris, the work refers to an illustration for Adam Mickiewicz's Romantic poem 'Dziady', the plot of which revolves around an ancient Slavic ritual feast that takes place on the last day of October to commemorate the dead and summon ancestors from the eternal realm. The scene depicted, Sobczak’s interpretation of the poem, portrays the spirit of an ancestor entering a house. Also visible is the artist’s self-portrait behind glass, representing a state of entrapment within the material world as a passive observer of the spiritual world.
Pieces of packaging from the HIV prevention medication known as PrEP have also been applied to the wooden door, along with an actual pill. The work is heavily inspired by conversations with Dale Harding, an Australian artist descended from the Bidjara, Ghungalu, and Garingbal peoples, with whom Sobczak spent time at the Cité des Arts residency in Paris. The two artists discussed their experiences with taking PrEP, their ancestry, and the history of HIV/AIDS activism, sharing a sense of gratitude.
In the lower part of the composition is the image of a character that Polish film historian Joanna Ostrowska had been researching and sent to Sobczak. The character, a woman named Agnieszka, had started appearing in the artist's dreams.ExhibitionsExternal ExhibitionsPressPublicationsVideoBiographyBorn 1989 in Poznań, Poland
Lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands and Düsseldorf, Germany
Mikołaj Sobczak works in the fields of video and painting; collaborative performative forms of expression are also an essential element of his artistic practice. Sobczak's work depicts everyday scenes as well as 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 is currently presenting his solo exhibition Divide and Conquer at the Polish Institute in Düsseldorf. He is also participating in the group exhibitions FIRE. From the Cosmos to the Commons at the St. Nikolai Memorial in Hamburg and We Carry Forward. Queer Horizons of Imagination at the Luther Museum in Amsterdam. His first book, Anti-Fascist Art Manifesto, was published in summer 2026 (sold out at the moment).
Mikołaj Sobczak’s recent solo exhibitions include ROZENSTRAAT, Amsterdam; Salzburger Kunstverein; Jester – Flanders Arts Institute, Genk, Belgium; and Kunsthalle Münster. His works have been shown in numerous group exhibitions, including at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Ludwig Forum, Aachen; Shedhalle, Zurich; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; MUDAM, Luxembourg; the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; the Whitechapel Gallery, London; and the Folkwang Museum, Essen. His works are included in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; the Ludwig Forum, Aachen; The Perimeter, London; the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; the Kunsthaus North Rhine-Westphalia, Aachen; and the National Museum in Gdańsk, among others.
In 2021, Sobczak was awarded the Paszport Polityki, Poland’s most prestigious art prize. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam and participated in the Art Explora – Cité internationale des arts residency program in Paris. As one of four selected artists, he has recently been awarded
the Villa Romana Prize for 2026.
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