Mikołaj Sobczak
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Biography
Born 1989 in Poznań, Poland
Lives and works in 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’s recent exhibitions include Salzburger Kunstverein; Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle; Jester - Flanders Arts Institute, Genk, Belgium; Ludwig Forum, Aachen; Kunsthalle Münster; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; MUDAM, Luxembourg and Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw.
Sobczak’s works are held in the collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-West- falen, Düsseldorf; Ludwig Forum, Aachen; The Perimeter, London; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw and The National Museum, Gdańsk, among others.
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 and took part in the biannual residency program with Art Explora - Cité internationale des arts in Paris. As one of four selected artists, he was recently awarded the prestigious Villa Romana Prize for the year 2026.
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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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News
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Mikołaj Sobczak
'Prophet Machine', ROZENSTRAAT – rose is a rose is a rose, Amsterdam
October 31, 2025 – January 25, 2026 31 October 2025The exhibition is a culmination of seven years of Sobczak's reasearch on the Anabaptist community the exhibition is a culmination of seven years of my...Read more -
Mikołaj Sobczak
Villa Romana Prize 2026 12 June 2025In a year that marks 120 years since the founding of Villa Romana, we are delighted to announce the recipients of the Villa Romana Prize...Read more
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WorksOpen a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Exhibition view Mikołaj Sobczak, Moon, Sun, Mercury, 2025. Commissioned and produced by Salzburger Kunstverein and co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Republic of Poland. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: kunst-dokumentation
Mikołaj Sobczak
SUN (MAGICAL REALISM), 2025Acrylic on canvasSigned and dated verso200 x 477 cm
78.7 x 187.8 inchesB-MSOBCZAK-.25-0002'Sun (Magical Realism)', a work that confronts the aesthetic and political dimensions of magical realism. Far from an escapist fantasy, magical realism is presented here as a tool of survival..."Sun (Magical Realism)", a work that confronts the aesthetic and political dimensions of magical realism. Far from an escapist fantasy, magical realism is presented here as a tool of survival in the face of violence and systemic erasure. Sobczak assembles a vivid ensemble: a revolutionary woman drawn from communist propaganda, standing in a posture echoing the Magus of the Tarot; Goethe invoked as a beacon against reactionary romanticism, as Thomas Mann once urged; poisonous plants like mandrake and belladonna, historically employed in rebellion against feudal lords.Exhibitions
Mikołaj Sobczak, Moon, Sun, Mercury, Salzburger Kunstverein, 2025Exhibitions-
25 for 2025
11 January — 15 February 2025Explore -
Mikołaj Sobczak
Le Boudoir de l'Amour 11 September — 19 October 2024Opening: 11 September, 2:30 - 8 pm Capitain Petzel is pleased to announce Mikołaj Sobczak’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, opening as part of Berlin Art Week on September...Explore -
omelette papier
15 January — 5 March 2022Karla Black, Andrea Bowers, Joe Bradley, Isabella Ducrot, Jadé Fadojutimi, Hadi Fallahpisheh, Anna Gaskell, Georgia Gardner Gray, Stefanie Heinze, Charline von Heyl, Sanya Kantarovsky, Maria Lassnig, Marcel Odenbach, Pieter Schoolwerth,...Explore -
On the Politics of Delicacy
24 January — 22 February 2020The Robert Anton Theatre & Yael Bartana, Duggie Fields, Federico García Lorca, Nicholas Grafia, Hannah Höch, Karolina Jablonska, Krzysztof Jung, Tadeusz Kantor, Stanislava Kovalcikova, Zoe Leonard, Liliane Lijn, Raúl Martínez,...Explore
External ExhibitionsMikołaj Sobczak, The Universal Empire, 2024
Mennonite Church by Rozenstraat - a rose is a rose is a rose, Amsterdam
Press-
Most Magazine: "Rhyme to Reason: What I Learned from Auguring Art in Salzburg" (Mikołaj Sobczak)
17 September 2025 -
Spike: "Mikołaj Sobczak at Salzburger Kunstverein"
Annalise June Kamegawa, 16 July 2025 -
Vogue Polska: "Vogue Polska” x BMW Art Academy: Contemporary artists are inspired by folklore" (Mikołaj Sobczak)
Marta Czyz, 28 May 2025 -
CULTURE.PL: "‘Familiar Strangers’: A Powerful Exhibition about Eastern Europe at Bozar, Brussels"
Aleksander Kmak, 16 April 2025 -
Artline: "Mikołaj Sobczak: Leibeigene. History in Drag"
Jens Bülskämper, 15 December 2022 -
Frieze: "Mikołaj Sobczak Upends History Painting"
Krzysztof Kościuczuk, 18 November 2022 -
Zacheta: "Demining fear. Mikołaj Sobczak in conversation with Aleksander Kmak"
Mikołaj Sobczak, Aleksander Kmak, 1 August 2021
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