Our Munich guide, Sofia Sokolov, is giving us an insider look at her personal art collection. Offering a strong knowledge of the contemporary art scene Sofia Sokolov has an academic and professional background in the history of art. Continue reading to see her top four pieces in her collection and learn why she continues to be inspired by them every day.
Sofia Sokolov (center) during a tour in Munich
Guy Avital
The works of Israeli artist Guy Avital are geometric, aggressive, dynamic and can overwhelm the viewer by a socio-political fullness. Childlike motifs, collages, flying geometric forms, elements which often meet us in our everyday life build the component of Avital's works. His works are divided by three levels on perception: firstly, it is an aesthetic and harmonious form that brings the artist's work to perfection. The second level is the socio-political struggle with one's own environment. Kantian elements received a symbolic meaning when viewed in the context of conflict. And the third level of perception is purely subjective and refers to viewer's imagination. It is an infinity of details, which always makes the picture new and interesting. Forms that are always revealing a new composition from a different perspective, and dynamics that allow tension. This exact combination is what makes his work so charming and attractive to me.
Guy Avital
Benyamin Reich
I love my collection and the work by Benyamin Reich is a very proud part of it! This work fascinates me again and again; the simplicity of the romantic landscape, the path that disappears in the horizon and the representation of Jerusalem under the snow is fascinating and melancholic at the same time. Benyamin chose a square format with black shadows, which increases the sensitivity of the image. From my point of view, Benyamin Reich is one of the most important photographers of Jewish art, who redefined the boundaries of orthodoxy and dissolved the framework of tradition.
Benyamin Reich
Denise Winter
Denise Winter works with spatial reductions and alienation effects. Often a self-shot photographic original serves as a starting point for her constructivist exploration of architecture and landscape. With her pinhole camera shots, she manages to integrate the moment of the unpredictable into her artistic work and to use it in a productive way by creating new spatial situations. In her installation pieces, which depict a consistent further development of her photographs, she pursues the construction of new spaces. Shadow- and outlines, architectural corner situations are taken from their original context and transferred as autonomous forms – as cut out spaces – to aluminum and chipboards. During the next stage of her process, Denise Winter defamiliarizes the original form further; by rolling up the sheets or arranging them in layers she achieves a renewed transformation. Space is not the only element that finds a new counterpart in this way, her objects also address temporality when the layered or rolled material reveal the process of their formation.
Denise Winter
Mihogo Ogaki
Japanese artist Mihogo Ogaki is probably the most dreamy and aesthetic artist in my collection. Her works deal with existential topics such as birth and death, thereby discussing philosophical issues of human life. Starting from scientific and evolutionism theory-based knowledge, Ogaki raises metaphysical, ontological and cosmic questions. Regarding the genesis of human life from a biological point of view, the embryo emerges from cell fusion and becomes a viable human being through cell division. All genetic information is individually determined within the DNA whose molecular consistency can be decoded by science in detail. Nonetheless, science has its limits. Questions such as “where do we come from and where are we going?" cannot be responded to in scientific terms. In my eyes my work by Mihogo represents the infinity of human feelings and the ways in which we perceive the universe. Her work realized the possibilities of a subjective representation of her own cosmos.
Mihogo Ogaki
Read Part 1 of this series of interviews with our guides about their personal art collections.
Take a tour with Sofia in Munich to learn about the art she loves and more!