Studio, image and the written word

Martin Schmidl is an artist, curator, writer and art historian from Aachen. Yesterday he spoke to us about his work spaces and elements of his work both within, and beyond, the studio.

Several of Schmidl’s work spaces have had multiple functions: the studio can also be a gallery. He showed us various examples, including ideas of the studio as a work of art in its own right. In one workplace he “recreated” his apartment, to serve as both a working and display space.

In his writing he has attempted to apply the tools of the artist to academic questions; and at the same time he has sought to think of ways to bring scientific methods to art. The boundaries between the two need not be absolute. Schmidl approached issues of exhibitions in the postwar period from the angle of viewing them as installations; and he drew on his experiences at academic lectures to create his “Common Designs / Lectures” series, which allow for portraiture without a contrived situation. Other work leads towards journalism: the newsletter finger serves as a platform for artists to write about subjects connected to artworks; and his book Greater Los Angeles uses spaces “inbetween” to create an alternative portrait of that city.

In future works he looks forward to more books, motivated by the idea that he “doesn’t know yet how they’ll look”.