In 2019 Erik Schmidt (Herford, 1968) has been in residence at Casa Baldi in Olevano Romano, a town near Rome that was a destination in the 18th and 19th centuries for many international, especially German, artists who were attracted to the landscape of the Roman Campagna. The structure, a branch of the German Academy in Rome, Villa Massimo, hosted the artist for three months during which Schmidt established a relationship with the surrounding historical and cultural context. That relationship is now being strengthened on the occasion of the exhibition in Florence in preparation for which he has made several visits to Italy, furthering his artistic knowledge of the area and observing its customs. In Florence, Schmidt is presenting recent works along with others from the early 2000s that together offer a comprehensive glimpse of his pictorial journey over the past two decades and, in some ways, of his research in general, lending the Florentine exhibition a special character.

After completing his studies at the Fachhochschule in Hamburg (1992-97) and at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin (1998-2000), he made his debut at the start of the new Millennium with paintings focused on the everyday (a true leitmotif of his work, not only pictorial, as evidenced by, among other things, the video Fine [2019], filmed in Rome during his retirement in Olevano, after which, once back in Berlin, he created Inizio, [2022]) and elaborated in oil on canvas according to a vocabulary made up of lumpy and juxtaposed colors that evoke, in their own way, originally reworked post-impressionist instances. Consider, for example, Parkhaus or Westend or Rosa from 2000, Kulturpalast from 2001, Rewe Markt of 2003, Biotope, Untilted (Rollerblader) or Fremdgehen of 2004, some of which are on view in Florence, where considerable space is given to the study of light and movement that lends them an almost cinematic flavor making them resemble outsized “stills.”

Then, with the passing of time, the pictorial impasto of the beginnings, while remaining textural, gradually lost some of its density and melted into a freer and more casual brushstroke that, instead of stretching out entirely on the canvas, covers, totally or partially, the prints of some photos taken by the artist. The result is pictorial cycles (or videos such as, for example, Parking from 2001, also in Florence) focused, like the initial paintings, on everyday life that evoke the atmospheres suspended in time and space typical of Magic Realism. These are urban or natural landscapes where individuals appear, in some cases, whose presence, sometimes unexpected or unconventional in gestures and attitudes, casts a novel glance at the environment that welcomes them and helps to reconsider the social and cultural dynamics of certain geographical contexts. Thus are born the views of the crowded streets of Tokyo, of the Occupy Movement in New York, of hunters’ associations in North Rhine-Westphalia, or of agricultural producers in the West Bank.

They are complemented by the recent series “Palm Bomb Paintings,” “Figure Paintings,” and “City Scape Paintings” (2022-23) represented in Florence by a number of examples that differ in size but are similar in technical terms. Their presence, in dialogue with the debut proofs, gives rise to a complete visual itinerary that, however synthetically, allows for an integral and organic evaluation of Erik Schmidt’s creative journey of the last twenty years.

Pier Paolo Pancotto