© Hannes Schmid Miss Nevada, a.d.S.: Las Vegas, 1999 / 2012 Digital C-Print, 75 x 60 cm © the artist
Kunstmuseum Bern Hodlerstrasse 8–12 CH-3000 Bern Suisse
The Kunstmuseum Bern is presenting a large exhibition of photographer, filmer, and painter Hannes Schmid with an overview of his work since the 1970s. After exhibitions at the Museum Folkwang in Essen and at the Fotostiftung in Winterthur, to name a few, our show is presenting with some 130 works the first ever large-scale overview of Schmid’s artistic and photographic career. The project was organized in close collaboration with the artist.
Hannes Schmid is one of the great visual narrators of our times. He first became famous with his iconic staging of the Marlboro cowboys and his innovative fashion shoots since the early 1990s. Since 2003, Schmid no longer works in the area of applied photography and faces the challenges of the art world. The exhibition is proof that there is no clear dividing line between applied photography and art photography and that Hannes Schmid is a master in both spheres. From 2003 onwards, Schmid not only began to create whole new groups of works, but also made new works based on images he had accumulated during his career. Photography is always his starting point, as the photorealistic paintings reveal that he based on his own photographs.
The exhibition is showing photographs, videos, and paintings. It is subdivided into the four thematic areas of RITUALS, VISIONS, DIALOGS, and MOVEMENTS with the goal of making visible the formal and content principles underlying Hannes Schmid’s work. The section RITUALS is devoted to the subject of ceremonies, both religious and social. That of VISIONS embraces the two large thematic areas of cowboys and fashion. This section engages in particular with the aspect of narrative in the medium of staged photography. That of DIALOGS investigates the communicative principle of portrait photography. The questions “who are you” and “who do you want to be” are the key issues addressed behind or in front of the lens. Schmid was most direct in such visual dialogs with the music stars of the 1980s. As the final section, MOVEMENTS takes up beat and speed, that is, phenomena that contrast fundamentally with photography because it freezes time in silent images.
©Hannes Schmid
态 TAI, For Gods Only, 2005 / 2012
Digital Print / Acryl auf Baryt, 120 x 120 cm
Sammlung Rainer-Marc Frey
© the artist
The concert pictures of AC/DC, Queen, Blondie, or Mick Jagger are strongly articulate of the thematic focus of the last section; these photographs resemble soundscapes illustrating the music of the time. This final section also zeroes in on heroism and star cult in the medium of photography. Fascinating proximity Hannes Schmid succeeds in conveying the impression of his intimacy with the objects and people in his work. Especially his portrait photographs or his documentary pictures testify, in the expressions of the faces, to the trust and openness between the sitters and the photographer, revealing that Hannes Schmid had no fear of physical contact and otherness. His images tell the stories of real life, which the title of the exhibition Real Stories alludes to.
Our guest curator Christiane Kuhlmann, a renowned specialist in the area of photography, assisted Hannes Schmid in going through his huge archive and selecting works for the exhibition, many of which were produced for the first time and especially for the show. The result is a presentation that gives a multi-faceted overview of the work of an indefatigable artist.