Elena Sorokina is a

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...

and writer based in Paris and Brussels. She was part of the curatorial team for

documenta Documenta (often stylized documenta) is an Art exhibition, exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. Documenta was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgarte ...

14 (2017) and co-curator of the Armenian Pavilion at the 59th

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

(2022). She served as chief curator of the HISK Higher Institute of Fine Arts, Belgium in 2017–2019. As independent curator, Sorokina has organised projects at BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Art Brussels, and

WIELS WIELS is a contemporary art centre in Forest, a municipality of Brussels, Belgium. The centre opened in 2007 in the former Blomme building, which belonged to the Wielemans-Ceuppens brewery. It has three exhibition platforms with a total exhibit ...

, Brussels;

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

and Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; SMBA

Stedelijk Museum The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

, Amsterdam;

Rudolfinum The Rudolfinum is a building in Prague, Czech Republic. It is designed in the neo-Renaissance style and is situated on Jan Palach Square on the bank of the river Vltava. Since its opening in 1885, it has been associated with music and art. C ...

, Prague; and

Pera Museum Pera Museum () is an art museum in the Tepebaşı quarter of the Beyoğlu (formerly called ''Pera'') district in Istanbul, Turkey, at Meşrutiyet Avenue No. 65, adjacent to İstiklal Avenue and in close proximity to Taksim Square. It has a parti ...

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

, among others.

Education

Sorokina studied art history at the Freie Universität in Berlin and the

Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...

in Bonn, where she completed her masters. In 2004-2005, she attended the curatorial studies of the

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

Independent Study Program (ISP), which culminated with the final exhibition "At the Mercy of Others: The Politics of Care". She was in the first selection of the Young Curators Residency Programme at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, in 2007.

Career

Sorokina started her career in the United States, curating exhibitions at

White Columns White Columns is New York City's oldest alternative non-profit art space. White Columns is known as a showcase for up-and-coming artists, and is primarily devoted to emerging artists who are not affiliated with galleries. All work submitted i ...

Art in General Art in General was a Non-profit organization, non-profit contemporary art exhibition space known for its vibrant and ground-breaking projects as a formidable and longstanding New York City alternative space, focused on giving meaningful resource ...

and YBCA San Francisco. She served as curatorial advisor for documenta 14 in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

, Germany and

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, Greece. In this framework, she co-curated with Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung the "''Symphony of Resonances''", the only project of documenta 14 in

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

, Greece. It featured the work of O+A (Bruce Odland/Sam Auinger) and took place at the Rotunda of Galerius (early 4th century AD) and Navarino Square. In 2017, Sorokina was appointed the chief curator of HISK (Higher Institute for Fine Arts) in Belgium. During her mandate she organised several collaborations between HISK and other institutions such as Art Brussels (with a special project ''Mystic Properties'', for the 50th Anniversary edition of Art Brussels), and The Swamp School of the Lithuanian Pavilion at the Venice International Architecture Biennale. In 2020, she co-founded an independent project, Initiatives for Practices and Visions of Radical Care, with Natasa Petresin-Bachelez, Head of Artistic and Cultural Programme at

Cité internationale des arts The Cité internationale des arts is an artist-in-residence building complex which accommodates artists of all specialities and nationalities in Paris. It comprises two sites, one located in the Marais and the other in Montmartre. Approximately ...

in Paris. In 2022, Sorokina co-curated the Armenian Pavilion (with Anne Davidian), featuring the solo exhibition of Andrius Arutiunian, an Armenian-Lithuanian artist working with sound.

Sustainable Curating

In 2020, Sorokina curated the exhibition "''Crystal Clear: Travels in Sustainable Exhibition Making''" at Pera Museum, Istanbul, which responded to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

with principles of

sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

. The project was developed as a contained

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by Organism, organisms in interaction with their Biophysical environment, environment. The Biotic material, biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and en ...

of relations and a small

circular economy A circular economy (also referred to as circularity or CE) is a model of resource Production (economics), production and Resource consumption, consumption in any economy that involves sharing, leasing, Reuse, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and ...

with diverse entanglements of production, display, and recycling of artistic, curatorial, and institutional work, material and immaterial. It implemented the following sustainability principles: production of the work in

collaboration Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. The ...

with small local associations, radically reduced shipment of objects, no

crating A crate is a large shipping container, often made of wood, typically used to transport or store large, heavy items. Steel and aluminium crates are also used. Specialized crates were designed for specific products, and were often made to be reus ...

, the use of recuperated materials, and creative

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the propert ...

of the exhibition after its closure.

Exhibitions and Projects

* ''Gharib,'' Armenian Pavilion, 59th Venice Biennale, co-curated with Anne Davidian, 2022 * ''En solidarité avec L’Ukraine. Une Assemblée exceptionnelle.'' With the Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2022 * ''Fragilités,'' Rudolfinum Prague, Czech Republic, co-curated with Silvia Van Espen, 2022 * ''Crystal Clear: Travels in Sustainable Exhibition Making,'' Pera Museum, Istanbul, 2021 * ''Zhanna Kadyrova. Resistance of Matter,'' Galleria Continua, Paris, 2019 * ''Variations on Vulnerability, Slow Compositions Between Six and Midnight,'' BOZAR, Brussels, co-organised with Aria Spinelli, 2018 * ''Mystic Properties,'' Hotel de La Poste, Tour et Taxis, Brussels, 2018 * ''Psycho-Vertical: Štefan Papčo'', KunstHalle Bratislava, Slovakia, 2017 * ''The Grid and the Cloud: How to Connect,'' Higher Institute for Fine Arts, Gent, Belgium, 2017 * ''Museum (Science)Fictions,'' Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2016 * ''Forms of Togetherness (and Separation), a Narrated Exhibition,'' WIELS, Brussels, 2015 * ''Lene Berg. Portrait of a Woman with Moustache,'' in “Revoir Picasso”, Musée Picasso Paris, 2015 * ''Spaces of Exception,'' Special project for the Moscow Biennial, co-curated with Jelle Bouwhuis, 2013 * ''NEWTOPIA. The state of human rights,'' curatorial advisor to Katerina Gregos, Mechelen, Belgium, 2012 * ''What Is a Postcolonial Exhibition?,'' Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and SMBA, Amsterdam, 2012 * ''Etats de l'Artifice'', Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 2010 * ''Scènes Centrales,'' part of Frontières Invisibles, TriPostal, Lille, France, 2009 * ''On Traders’ Dilemmas: Tracing Roads Through Central Asia'', YBCA (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts), San Francisco, 2008 * ''Laws of Relativity (La legge e relativa per tutti),'' Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation, co-curated with Anna Colin, Turin, 2008 * ''At the Mercy of Others. The Politics of Care,'' Whitney Museum of American Art ISP, New York, 2004 * ''Crude Oil Paintings,'' White Columns, New York, 2004

Writing

Between 2000-2007, Sorokina had been writing art criticism in German for several publications including

Die Tageszeitung ''Die Tageszeitung'' (, "The Daily Newspaper"), stylized as ''die tageszeitung'' and commonly referred to as ''taz'', is a German daily newspaper. It is run as a cooperative – it is administered by its employees and a co-operative of sharehol ...

Frankfurter Rundschau The ''Frankfurter Rundschau'' (''FR'') is a German daily newspaper, based in Frankfurt am Main. The ''Rundschaus editorial stance is social liberal. It holds that "independence, social justice and fairness" underlie its journalism. In Post-wa ...

Wirtschaftswoche ''Wirtschaftswoche'' is a German weekly business news magazine published in Germany. ''Wirtschaft'' means “economy” (including business), and ''Woche'' is “week”. History and profile For many years, ''Wirtschaftswoche'' was published ...

Die Welt (, ) is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE. is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group and it is considered a newspaper of record in Germany. Its leading competitors are the ...

Die Zeit (, ) is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles. History The first edition of was ...

, and later in English for

e-flux e-flux is a publishing platform and archive, artist project, curatorial platform, and e-mail service founded in 1998. The arts news digests, events, exhibitions, schools, journal, books, and art projects produced and/or disseminated by e-flux ...

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ × 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably ...

, Manifesta Journal. * 'On Rocket Flowers and the Speed of Snails', in ''fragilités'', exhibition catalogue. Czech Republic: Rudolfinum, 2022. * ''Crystal Clear,'' exhibition catalogue (co-editor). Istanbul: Pera Museum, 2020. * ''Štefan Papčo: Verticality as Fantastic Occupation,'' artist monograph (editor)''.'' 2019 * ''Mystic Properties,'' limited edition with Kristien Daems. Brussels: HISK; ART Brussels, 2018. * ''The Grid and the Cloud. How to Connect,'' exhibition catalogue (editor). Brussels: HISK, 2017. * ''Manolo Millares'', exhibition catalogue (editor). Galerie Mayoral, 2017. * ''Newtopia: The State of Human Rights,'' exhibition catalogue (co-editor). Ludion, 2013. * 'Performing the Documentary', in ''Mutations: Perspectives on Photography,'' 1st ed.

Steidl Steidl is a German-language publisher based in Göttingen, Germany. Founded in 1968 by Gerhard Steidl, it publishes photobooks. Overview The company was started by Gerhard Steidl.Bill Kouwenhoven, "Off to see the wizard", ''British Journa ...

, 2011. * ''Pacific Perspectives', in ''Paradigm Shifts: Walter and McBean Galleries Exhibitions and Public Programs San Francisco Art Institute 2006-2011.'' San Francisco: SFAI, 2011. * 'Starring Abramovic, Playing Herself,'' ''Manifesta Journal,'' N11, 2010. * ''Frontières Invisibles,'' exhibition catalogue (co-editor). Broché, 2009. * '''''Performance Practice of Elena Kovylina,'' in ''15th Biennale of Sydney: Zones of Contact''. Sydney: Biennale of Sydney, 2006. * ''Terrain Vague as a Stage: Chinese Video at PS1 in New York', ''Performance Art Journal, MIT Press'', 2004-2005. * ''Crude Oil Paintings,'' exhibition catalogue. New York: White Columns, 2004.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sorokina, Elena Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Art historians Women art historians 21st-century historians 21st-century women writers