Capturing the spirit of motorsports
Hannes Schmid presents his unique artistic oeuvre “Momentous” at the Today Art Museum in Beijing between June 22 and July 17. The Swiss photographer and artist brings his insider experience to a novel exploration of Formula 1 as a trans-cultural phenomenon and as art. It raises awareness of Formula 1 as an art of velocity, of scientific and technological innovation and of precise time management that demands perfection from both car and driver. The presentation captures the spirit and essence of this high-performance sport.
Multi-media, audiovisual and interactive
MOMENTOUS is a multi-media, audiovisual and interactive project that invites visitors to engage with the exhibition by uploading images of their own to be projected onto the mobile structures.
At the center of the exhibition stands the installation of five gigantic mobile sculptures, reminiscent of Raymond Loewy’s Bull’s Eye, consisting of four parts turning at individual speed. In the side rooms, the exhibition features works of Schmid depicting Formula 1 drivers as heroes as well as images related to the Bonneville Project, which aimed to set a land speed record with a Formula 1 car on the Bonneville Sat Flats of Utah, America.
After taking in the dialectics between the last two rooms, visitors can, with help of an app, upload images of their own to be projected onto the mobile installation and therefore directly contribute to the synthesis with which newly arriving visitors will be confronted.
Hence the two-dimensionality of the Formula 1 pictures combined with the three-dimensionality of the pending sculptures opens up the fourth dimension of time and space – creating a virtual perpetuum mobile.
Combining profound insider knowledge with an instructive outsider perspective, Swiss photographer and artist Hannes Schmid achieves fascinating insights into worlds both known and unknown to onlookers. He is probably best known to a wide audience for his work on the Marlboro Cowboy, a concept that he re-invented in the 90s and which found its way into conceptual art.
His complex oeuvre, consisting of photographic essays as well as commissioned work, covers Western rock and pop idols, religious or social outcasts, or stars of the fashion or motor racing scene and alike. It sheds light on social and cultural phenomena that shape our present, globalized world, examines individual and collective behaviour, or advertises products by creating stories that let consumers forget they are looking at commercials. While producing a universally understandable language, Schmid’s camera lens always captures the singularity of a happening, a person, or a product.
Hannes Schmid himself is a tireless traveller and explorer. He spent substantial amounts of time in Asia Pacific and is dedicated to charity work in Cambodia. With his Chinese wife and two children, he is well connected into the Chinese cultural scene.
