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The Universal Empire

Mikołaj Sobczak

Performance

11 April 2025, 18:00 The event will take place in English.

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Mikołaj Sobczak, The Universal Empire, Courtesy the artist

Mikołaj Sobczak’s musical The Universal Empire takes us to a 17th-century Anabaptist commune, where the English poet and artist William Blake mysteriously appears. He claims to come from the 19th century. It is an enigmatic arrival that raises many questions and ultimately leads to a confrontation with an external force: the “Universal Empire”, which can be read as universal consciousness. As historical reality and illusion merge, we will wonder: are we ourselves part of a grand social theater?

Biography

Mikołaj 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. In 2024 Mikołaj Sobczak held an institutional solo exhibition at Jester – Flanders Arts Institute, Genk, Belgium. The artist will have a solo exhibition at Salzburger Kunstverein, Austria in 2025. Recent exhibitions also 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).

Sobczak’s works are held in the collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 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 (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.