Haim Sokol

It seems as if there is nowhere left to hide. Flee from one war, and you might find yourself in the midst of another. Haim Sokol’s installation in one of the former employee apartments used by the police presents a dense poetic narrative about the war in Ukraine, which caused Sokol to leave Russia in 2022, and the war in Gaza, which now affects him as a citizen of Israel. His poems rail against the inevitability of destruction—symbolized by ravens that populate his graphics and eat cement soup in his objects. Sokol reflects on his own complicity by fashioning himself as a scarecrow or portraying himself as a soldier dressed in women’s underwear—like real Israeli soldiers in Gaza.

Haim Sokol (1973, Arkhangelsk, Russia) is an installation, sculpture, and video artist whose practice addresses the social histories of Russia and Eastern Europe. His works have been exhibited at the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; the Moscow Museum of Modern Art; the Tel Aviv Artists’ House; the CCI Fabrika, Moscow; and many other venues. Sokol has participated in the 1st Kyiv Biennial (2015); the 1st Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2012); the Mediations Biennale, Poznań (2010); the 3rd Moscow Biennale (2009); and the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale (2009), among others. He lives in Ramat Gan.