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, 2026
Mikołaj 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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News
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Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, Mikołaj Sobczak
'Family Album' (Group Show), Kunsthuis Syb, Beetsterzwaag
October 17, 2026 – January 16, 2027 17 October 2026We are excited to announce Family Album, a new group exhibition at Kunsthuis Syb, with work by Ulises Carrión, Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der...Read more -
Mikołaj Sobczak
'Le Cose Hanno Ancora Sete' (Group Show), Villa Romana, Florence
September 19 – November 9, 2026 19 September 2026Some things remain thirsty. Not only bodies, but houses, paintings, photographs, archives, windows, gardens, and stories. They absorb and retain, and they release. They carry...Read more -
Mikołaj Sobczak
'We Carry Forward: Queer Horizons of Imagination' (Group Show), Luther Museum Amsterdam
July 10 – October 11, 2026 10 July 2026The exhibition ‘Our Faith is Love’ receives a contemporary translation in the Regents’ Rooms of the museum with a separate exhibition. Artist and curator Andrea...Read more -
Mikołaj Sobczak
'Manifesta 16 Ruhr' (Biennial), Gethsemane-Kirche, Bochum
June 21 – October 4, 2026 21 June 2026From June 21 the nomadic biennial spans four Ruhr cities–Bochum, Essen, Duisburg, and Gelsenkirchen–across 12 decommissioned modernist churches. Sobczak presents a newly commissioned work at...Read more -
Mikołaj Sobczak
'Mikołaj Sobczak – Teilen und Herrschen', Polnisches Institut Düsseldorf
June 12 – October 9, 2026 12 June 2026The Polish Institute in Düsseldorf presents the first institutional solo exhibition of Mikołaj Sobczak in Düsseldorf. The exhibition brings together key works from different creative...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:
Installation 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. Ph: kunst-dokumentation
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Installation 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. Ph: kunst-dokumentation
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Installation 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. Ph: kunst-dokumentation
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Installation view, Mikołaj Sobczak, Ancora, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2026. Courtesy the artist and Capitain Petzel. Ph: GRAYSC
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Installation view, Mikołaj Sobczak, Ancora, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2026. Courtesy the artist and Capitain Petzel. Ph: GRAYSC
Mikołaj Sobczak
SUN (MAGICAL REALISM), 2025Acrylic on canvasSigned and dated verso200 x 477 cm
78.7 x 187.8 inchesB-MSOBCZAK-.25-0002Further images
'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.
In SUN (MAGICAL REALISM) spannt Mikołaj Sobczak einen historischen Bogen von mittelalterlichen Bauernaufständen über die Widerstandsstrategien versklavter Menschen bis hin zu den Machtstrukturen des globalen Kapitalismus. Ausgehend von der Geschichte des versklavten Joe Kilpatrick, der Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts auf einer amerikanischen Plantage ein Schwarzes Kind adoptierte, verbindet Sobczak historische Formen solidarischen Widerstands mit gegenwärtigen Mechanismen gesellschaftlicher Kontrolle – verkörpert sowohl durch Figuren wie Jeff Bezos als auch durch Medikamente wie Xanax, Ritalin, Concerta oder Adderall, die Aufmerksamkeit, Angst und Leistungsfähigkeit im spätkapitalistischen Alltag regulieren.Exhibitions
Mikołaj Sobczak, Moon, Sun, Mercury, Salzburger Kunstverein, 2025Exhibitions-
Mikołaj Sobczak
25 June — 1 August 2026
AncoraExplore -
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, Prophet Machine, 2025
ROZENSTRAAT- rose is a rose is a rose, Amsterdam
Press-
Arts of the Working Class: "Art must not wait for victims to die before documenting their struggles" (Mikołaj Sobczak)
Daniel Jonas Roche, 25 August 2026 -
Cahier: "Mikołaj Sobczak"
29 June 2026 -
Il Giornale dell'Arte: 'Quando la pittura diventa archivio: Mikołaj Sobczak da Capitain Petzel'
Margherita Panaciciu, 22 June 2026 -
Rheinische Post: "Überfallen, ausgegrenzt, deportiert – eine Ausstellung über Queerness" (Mikołaj Sobczak)
Claudia Hötzendorfer, 12 June 2026 -
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
Publications-
Mikołaj Sobczak
Mikołaj Sobczak. Anti-Fascist Art Manifesto, 2026 2026Hardcover, 48 pagesRead more
Publisher: Walther König
ISBN: 978-3-7533-1053-4 -
Sanya Kantarovsky, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, Mikolaj Sobczak
House of Nisaba: New Stories of Painting, Moderna Museet, 2026 2026Softcover, 352 pagesRead more
Publisher: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, Köln
ISBN: 978-3-7533-1003-9
Dimensions: 17 x 23.5 cm
VideoBiography
Born 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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