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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News
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Works
Mikołaj Sobczak
It’s 10pm. Do you know where your children are?, 2019Performance with Nicholas GrafiaCommissioned by Dortmunder KunstvereinFurther images
The performance “It’s 10PM. Do You know where your children are?” by Nicholas Grafia and Mikołaj Sobczak consists of a collage of texts like news, goodbye letters, family conversations, memories,...The performance “It’s 10PM. Do You know where your children are?” by Nicholas Grafia and Mikołaj Sobczak consists of a collage of texts like news, goodbye letters, family conversations, memories, as well as statistics and research finds on POC (and) LGBTQ individuals’ social environment and psychological developments. Within the performance, stories of different families are being intertwined. Intergenerational and personal dynamics, tension between parent figures and their designated offspring, as well as notions of love, hate, desire and regret are negotiated within the duration of the action. The choreography and costumes used in the performance are furthermore inspired by images of figures, known from folklore, oral tradition, film and art history. The focus here lies on narrations and images depicting characters that fought in various public and intimate settings of social resistance. The narratives in the performance circulate and partly loop, building the core of the action and are being mediated by two “satellites”, represented by the performers.Exhibitions
Gallery Weekend Festival, Berlin, September 2023
Bergen Konsthall, Bergen, March 2022
Open Studios, Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, 2022
KW Institute for Contemporary, Berlin, Juni 2021
Dortmunder Kunstverein, June 2019
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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