Alexander Sokolov was born in 1986 in Moscow.
2018-2019 completed the course "Contemporary art" at the School of Contemporary Art "Free Workshops" at MMOMA. He was a student of Joseph Bakstein Institute of Contemporary Art, the course "New Artistic Strategies".
Participant of the main programs of the Wroclaw Biennale of Media Art WRO, The wrong biennale nº5 and the 1st Karelian Biennale. Alexander Sokolov's works have been presented at the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, Vadim Sidur Museum, CAC Vinzavod, CTI Factory, Wro Art Center, the Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Karelia, as well as at many festivals, such as Ars Electronica Festival, CHEAP festival, Intervals, VOSTOK 3.
Parallel to his exhibition activities, he is engaged in street art, creating urban interventions in Russia (Moscow, St.Petersburg, Kazan, Kaliningrad, etc.), Europe (Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Budapest etc.) and Asia (Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Saigon, Phnom Penh etc.).
In his artistic practice, through painting, installations and digital art, he addresses the themes of cultural polyphony and the history of games, inspired by the works by Mikhail Bakhtin and Dominic Lopez.
Author's comment:
"In my childhood in the 1990s the aesthetics of hip-hop, manga and video games dominated. In this visual culture there is a mixture of ethnic, industrial and fantastic motifs. The nowadays information landscape is constantly becoming more complex by the interpenetration of different cultures, often contradictory to each other. As an artist based in two cultural worlds at the same time – the global Western and the local Russian, I have a consciousness that lives in both dimensions.
I want to give a different interpretation to globalism through the study of games and the manipulation of their components. By their nature games are unifying. It is a tool to resole the intrigues, internal tension and external conflict of cultures. Game symbols, shapes and rules are accessible and create a synergy of movement between players, harmonizing their cultural setups. Working with games one can give an up-to-date and meaningful estimation of the current state of the world."
ART RESIDENCIES
2022 Cultural code. Ryabushinsky Сottage, Vyshny Volochyok
2021 White on white. Botanical Garden of Moscow State University "Aptekarsky Ogorod", Moscow
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2024 A Collection of chess koans. Solo Exhibition at LUCH Gallery
2022 The era of rapid oblivion. Manor, The Swamp Volzhsk Biennale. Vasya Berezina Squat, Moscow
Everplace NFT. THIRD PLACE, St.Petersburg
Your move. GES-2, Moscow
Findings from the subconscious of a fairy-tale hero. Cube.Moscow, Moscow
The return of Kolobok and a few more strange attractors. Fabrika, Moscow
La Vita dell'arte ed. III. A60 Contemporary Art Space, Milan, Italy
BLACK and WHITE. STUDIO NEXT, Kolkata, India
DECIPRALAND. Nizhny Novgorod
NUR Media Art Festival. National Library of the Republic of Tatarstan, Kazan
The cultural layer. Bogorodskoye Gallery, Moscow
Recreation zone. 2MRW NFT Gallery, Moscow
The poetry of space. The point in[out]move. THIRD PLACE, St. Petersburg
The cultural code. Ryabushinsky Cottage, Vyshny Volochyok
SE8ER. Reinforced Concrete Products Plant No.21, Moscow
The bridge. Onegog, Moscow
2021
WRO Media Art Biennale. Wro Art Center, Wroclaw, Poland
“The time of things“ in the framework of "Winzavod.Open”, CSI Winzavod, Moscow
On Media. Signals and Connections. Millepiani, Milan, Italy
The Wrong Biennale, pavilion “Objeto Virtual Não Identificado", online
Karelian Biennale. Museum of Fine Arts of Karelia, Petrozavodsk
White on white. Botanical Garden of Moscow State University "Aptekarsky Ogorod", Moscow
2nd International Video Art Biennale “Restless Waiting”, online
Graphics. Bogorodskoye Gallery, Moscow
ConcreteHouse.art. Ars Electronica Festival, online
Touch The Could That Sleeps. A60 Contemporary Art Space, Florence, Italy
Intervals. NFTapping, Nizhny Novgorod
Starfall. HERE on Taganka, Moscow
Stuffy vs. Windy. Izmailovo Gallery, Moscow
OpenCall Exhibition. New Sincerity, Moscow
Alterglobalism. Belyaevo Gallery, Moscow
023H. ZIL Center, Moscow