Info

I investigate the tension between positive and negative freedom: between the collective construction of agency and the mere absence of constraint. I am interested in how images produce responsibility — how they make ecological and political entanglements visible, or allow them to vanish. My work asks under what conditions perception becomes political.

My practice is process-oriented. Painting, sound, light, archival fragments and digital images operate as actors within open constellations. I gather visual and acoustic material across geographic and cultural contexts — glaciers, birdsong, industrial noise, nautical signal lights, ritual colour basins in Kathmandu. These elements enter into relation. They form systems that are simultaneously aesthetic, ecological and social.

Installations become navigational environments. Light is not merely illumination but orientation — a metaphor for movement at a moment when ecological tipping points and global supply chains continuously redraw the coordinates of reality. Painting expands into space; digital image fragments are layered, printed, disrupted and overpainted. Surfaces accumulate as sedimented fields in which geological, technological and cultural processes converge. I search for collective image-spaces in which counter-narratives can take shape and new forms of being-together become thinkable.

Fabian Raphael Sokolowski, born 1997 in Würzburg, lives and works in Düsseldorf. From 2017 to 2024 he studied Fine Art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Prof. Peter Piller and Prof. Maximiliane Baumgartner. In 2022–23 he studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen with Prof. Ferdinand Ahm Krag, graduating in 2024 with distinction as Meisterschüler under Prof. Peter Piller.

He was a Cusanuswerk scholar (2019–2024) and has received numerous awards and nominations, among them the BKC Art Award (2021), the Nouveau Grand Tour (2024) and a fellowship for Japan by the Studienwerk für Deutsch-Japanischen Kulturaustausch in NRW (2025).

Alongside his artistic practice, Sokolowski works as a curator, theorist and lecturer. He initiated the first major exchange exhibition between the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and is a founding member of the editorial board of Artis Observatio, the first German academic journal for the sociology of art. Since 2024 he has served as Student Counselor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He is speaker of the Rat der Künste Düsseldorf and has been engaged in numerous academic and cultural policy committees.

Education
2025Bachelor of Education (1,4 Ø), Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, DE
Bachelorthesis: Zum Begriff der Verantwortung bei Bruno Latour (1,0 Ø)
2024Akademiebrief / diploma, Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, DE
Meisterschüler / studies with distinction, professor Peter Piller
2022–23Class for painting, professor Maximiliane Baumgartner, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
2021–22The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Copenhagen, DNK, painting department, professor Ferdinand Ahm Krag
2017–24Class of free art, professor Peter Piller, Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
2015–16Federal voluntary service: disability nurse, Cordoba, ARG
2009–15Youth art academy artefact, Bonn, DE
2007–15Collegium Josephinum, Bonn, DE
2001–15Viola & violin, Ludvig-van-Beethoven-Musikschule, Bonn, DE
Awards & Fellowships
2025Japan erleben – Studienwerk für Deutsch-Japanischen Kulturaustausch in NRW e.V.
2024Noveau Grand Tour – Institut français d’Italie & Embassy of France, Cairo Montenotte, ITA
2024Nominee art prize BEST GRUPPE
2023Nominee art prize of the Äpotheker- und Ärztebank (APO)
2019–24Scholarship Cusanuswerk
2021BKC Art-Award-Paderborn
20152. place Jugendkunstpreis, BBK Bonn-Rhein-Sieg
Teaching & Assistance
since 2024Student Counselor, Department of Finance and Procurement, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
2019–25Assistant of Professor Dr. Nina Tessa Zahner, Sociology of Art, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
2022–24Tutor, class for free art – professor Peter Piller, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
2023Taught seminar, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf WS 2023/24:
Survival After Disneyland – Schritte in die Selbstständigkeit als Künstler*in
Freie Fotografie: Restitution eines Mediums – im Licht der Gesellschaft
Boards & Engagement
since 2025Rat der Künste Düsseldorf: Sprecher
since 2024Kunstkommission Düsseldorf: reserve member
2023–24Commission Zukunft Kunstakademie (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf)
2022–24Student Parliament (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf)
2022–24Quality Improvement Commission (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf)
Chairman of the AStA-Climate Department (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf)
2022–23Co-Chair of the Board of Scholars, Cusanuswerk
2020–21Deputy Chairman AStA (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf)
Conference & Workshop Attendance
2026NEIHGBOURHOODS, Kuma International Artist exchange, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
20246th International Summer Camp, Tirana & Spac, Albania
2023Globalize Art Markets. Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, University Cologne & ZADIK – Central Archive for German and International Art Market Studies, Düsseldorf & Cologne, DE
Demokratie gestalten, Sommerakademie der 13 Begabtenförderungswerke, Heidelberg, DE
2022National Model United Nations Conference on Peacekeeping, Kobe, Japan
National Model United Nations Conference, New York, USA
2020Kulturmanagement zwischen Materialität und Digitalisierung, Jahrestagung Fachverband Kulturmanagement, Düsseldorf, DE
Associations
701 e.V.
Container e.V.
Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft e.V.
Künstlerverein Malkasten e.V.
Verein der Düsseldorfer Künstler zur gegenseitigen Unterstützung und Hilfe, gegr. 1844 e.V.