“I’ve got to say that the whole artistic practice is none other than an attempt of approach”
AT: Where are you from and how/why you start engaging to art?
SK: I was born in Georgia and, like all children, I started drawing and painting.
AT: When did it become serious?
SK: For me it has always been something important. No one is more serious than a child.
AT: Are there any person that have been significant in your progression as an artist?
SK: Many! All the people dear to me whose opinion was important and invaluable.
AT: What’s your first approach to the work? Where does your process start?
SK: I’ve got to say that the whole artistic practice is none other than an attempt of approach.
Terra, Geografia temporale (2016)
AT: What are your favourite tools and materials for working?
SK: The Time and Earth, the fall and the resistance.
AT: Do you leave your work open to interpretation? Or do you think the viewer should engage with your work in a specific way?
SK: The work is a form of thought that takes shape and it’s always an openness which asks many questions. Indeed I would like a chair to stand in front of every work of art.
AT: How do you feel while you are working? You think of the final result?
SK: The image is always imagined and the result is always unexpected due to the fact that the material isn’t totally projectable. The imagination isn’t only a matter of pre-figuration but also of an incalculable experimentation which we live while we are creating a piece of art.
AT: How do you understand when a work is finished?
SK: It’s not up to me to finish the work but rather only to start it. Usually I don’t create a finished shape but I arrange things so as to happen and finish themselves. Once this process is completed, the real work of Time begins and can only be completed with its hand. I start from something that exists, I identify a path which is part of life and I carry it forward as much as I can trying to give it a shape, then the work move forward autonomously. In the end, when you sign it and date it you finally identify that as a completed work.
Atti di resistenza, Geografia temporale, 2018, 200x100cm
Sull’infinito gorgo, pure pigment, 150 x 70 cm – 40 x 70 cm
AT: Where does the inspiration for the work come from? Do you find inspiration outside or it’s all inside you?
SK: It’s too difficult to understand what it’s outside and what it’s inside. We don’t know where ourselves start neither where ourselves finish.
AT: Do you think art can be learned or it is something innate?
SK: Art is a discipline so it can be learned. Then there are a lot of people with the gift of hearing, touch, language and so on.
AT: There are any artists that influenced your works? Why?
SK: Cave paintings, icons without any authors, Hamlet Gonashvili and Andrej Tarkovskj.
AT: How important is for you the role of social media?
SK: I live in this age and the social media are an important part of this era for sure. I try to use social media with moderation. Undoubtedly it is a phenomenon that in many respects is disquieting especially if attention is paid to the expression “social media”. I found the writing by Byung-Chul Han in the swarm very interesting. Visions of the digital where he writes in this regard: “the socius gives way to the solus; not the multitude, but rather the solitude characterizes today’s social form, overwhelmed by the general disintegration of the municipality and the collective. Solidarity disappears: privatization extends to the soul”. And then “the medium of the spirit is silence, which is clearly destroyed by digital communication”.
Geografia temporale, 2019, pure pigment, cm 100×70
Geografia temporale, 2019, pure pigment, cm 100×70
AT: What’s your opinion about the contemporary art system nowadays from your point of view as an artist?
SK: Just the link between the terms “art” and “system” is deleterious and even absurd.
AT: What do you find to be the most challenging or daunting thing about pursuing art? What is the most rewarding part of working as an artist?
SK: Have the time to observe.
AT: What are your goals and expectations for the future?
SK: Stay awake.
Polittico del cielo e della terra, pigmento puro, 2018, 300 x 415 cm
SOPHIE KO Born in Tbilisi (Georgia) in 1981 Lives and works in Milan SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2018 Sporgersi nella notte, text by Marina Dacci and Maurizio Guerri, Renata Fabbri arte contemporanea, Milano Sporgersi nella notte. Atto uno, San Martino, text by Luigi Gaspare Marcone, The Open Box, Milan 2016 Terra. Geografie temporali, with a critical essay by Federico Ferrari Materialismo estatico, Galleria de’Foscherari, Bologna, Italy 2015 Silva Imaginum, Renata Fabbri Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy 2014 Solo Show, with a critical essay by Federico Ferrari Finis initium, AplusB Contemporary Art, Brescia, Italy 2013 Nel cielo dove qualcosa luccica, Museo Ettore Archinti, Lodi, Italy 2012 Geografia Temporale, Nowhere Gallery, Milan, Italy 2011 Ad altezza d’occhio, NuovoCIB – Galleria Formentini, Milan, Italy SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2019 Vesuvio quotidiano, Vesuvio universale, Museo Nazionale di San Martino, Naples Looking for Utopia, Novecento, San Marco, Venice Loose Ends, Renata Fabbri arte contemporanea, Milan Hortus Conclusus, Fondazione 107, Turin Vetrine di libertà. La libreria delle donne di Milano, ieri e oggi, Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan Simply untitled, Isorropia Home Gallery, Milan 2018 Come cenni di mare sulla spiaggia, Riss(e), Varese, Italy Dotland II,Peninsula, Berlin, Germany Grand Tour en Italie, Porto turistico Villa Igea, curated by Michela Eremita, Manifesta 2018, Palermo IXION, La collezione, la sua evoluzione e la ricerca culturale al servizio della città, MAC Museo di Arte contemporanea di Lissone Immagini ombre idee, curated by Gaspare Luigi Marcone, The Open Box, Milano “…et refaire le monde” Bea Bonafini, Sépàd Danesh, Sophie Ko, Octave Marsal, La Galerie Bessières, Chatou, 2018 Men at work/Women work Better, Bibo’s Place, Roma Scacco matto, il grigio non esiste: solo bianco, solo nero, Bibo’s Place, Rome, Italy Kahuna, curated by Leonardo Regano, promoted by Polo Museale dell’Emilia Romagna, Ex chiesa di San Mattia, Bologna, Italy Dotland II, curated by Penisula, Berlin, Germany Generation’s curated by Ilaria Bignotti, Marignana Arte, Venezia 2017 Madeinfilandia 2017, curated by Residenza Madeinfilandia, Pieve a Presciano Storie e opere, Fondazione Malvina Menegaz per le Arti, Castelbasso Fuocoapaesaggio, curated by Gianluca d’Inca Levis and Giovanna Repetto, Forte di Monte Ricco, Pieve di Cadore The Hidden Dimension. Chapter II, curated by Ilaria Bignotti, Galleria Marignanaarte, Venice Rosso Freddo, curated by Festival Studi III, Milan
2016 Fracturae, curated by Giorgia Galdaston, Palazzo Altan, San Vito al Tagliamento Fine del possibile. Tra l’esausto e l’esaustivo, group show and convention, Frittelli Arte Contemporanea and Gruppo Quinto Alto, Florence Beyond Landscape, curated by Andrea Lerda, Renata Fabbri Arte Contemporanea, Milan Xenia – Volume II, Sophie Ko & Alessandro Roma, curated by Alberta Romano, Casa Bertoli-Borsani, Milan 2015 Les Sublimes, curated by della Fondazione Arthur Cravan and Cose Cosmiche, Milan, Italy Vetrina, curated by SOAP and festival STUDI, Milan, Italy 2013 Castello 40. A case study, curated by Fortunato D’Amico, Venicedocks, Venice, Italy 2008 Schlaglichter, Ateliergemeinschaft Geh8, Dresda Maestros Y Discipulos, promossa dall’ Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Museo Municipal De Bellas Artes G. Perez di Cordoba, Argentine 2007 QUI OBIJT ANNO MMVII, S. Carpoforo, Milan, Italy 2003 Transmission, promoted by Associazione Arte senza Frontiere, Gallery Priestor for Contemporary Art, Bratislava, Slovacchia AWARDS 2018 Nominated for Premio Cairo 2018, Milan 2017 Finalist by Academy Now, London 2016 First prize winner Gran Premio della Pittura, curated by Alberto Zanchetta, MAC-Contemporary Art Museum, Lissone 2015 Shortlisted Premio Francesco Fabbri per le Arti Contemporanee, Pieve di Soligo RESIDENCES AND SPECIAL PROJECTS 2017 Residenza Made in Filandia, Pergine Valdarno 2016 Residenza Progetto Borca – Dolomiti Contemporanee, curated by Gianluca D’Incà Levis 2015 Residenza Carloforte, Italy 2005-2006 Internship Program of the European Commission Giovani per l’Interculturalità at Progetto Giovani, Padua 2003 Scholarship of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan STUDIES MFA Brera Academy, Milan Ba Academy of Fine Arts, Tbilisi
