In the afternoon of June 22, 2014, presented by UBS, organized by Today Art Museum, a multimedia interactive exhibition “Momentous” opened at the Today Art Museum. It is the inaugural exhibition of Swiss photographer Hannes Schmid in Asia. Gao Peng, Director of Today Art Museum, Cheng Yisun, Managing Director, UBS Securities Co., Ltd, artist Hannes Schmid, Kornelia Imesch, curator of the exhibition, and a variety of media friends attended the press conference and opening ceremony of the exhibition.

The exhibition is designed on the basis of the concept of Western classical rhetoric, the three exhibition halls respectively feature: Proposition - Inverse proposition - Integrated proposition, it is a process to reveal that two opposite sides are unified. Although it is different with Eastern philosophy, in the latter two halls, especially the third conclusive main hall – “Integrated proposition”, the audience would see the mutual compromise and fusion between the Eastern and Western thoughts in the field of art.

While the audiences enter the 2nd floor exhibition hall of Building No.1, they will feel the magic power brought by the wonderful space. Five huge moving sculptures which are composed of four parts respectively rotatingon different speeds, stand erectly in the middle of the ceiling. These five huge multimedia installations also mean the “Five Elements” of Chinese Taoism – “in the universe, everything mutually promotesoris destructed, in the endless cycle. After the press conference, Hannes Schmid invited visitors to use their mobile phones and digital applications to upload their own images, together with the photos of the artist, to project them to the moving sculptures, so that they were really interactive with the exhibition. Through his Chinese wife and two children, Hannes Schmid is tightly linked to Chinese culture. Schmid believed that “Momentous” was a combination of two kinds of culture, and invited the audience to see art and philosophy by intertwining different cultures. He said: “In recent years, I feel more and more that Chinese civilization increasingly influenced us. I am very interested in the exploration of the future of this cultural exchange, and this exhibition also shows the energy transferred by the exchange.”

In addition to the interactive work prepared for the audience, the exhibition also features a series of multimedia work themed on Formula 1 by Schmid, including “Short Stories” and “Moment of a Moment”, to present the high-tech motor vehicle and heroic racing driver, and exploring the theme of speed and time. It features the giant personal portraits of Formula 1 racing drivers Jenson Button, Jacques Villeneuve and Takuma Sato in the exhibition, and these unusual pictures were taken in a modern building located on the French blue coast - Pierre Cardin’s Bubble House. It also exhibits the landscape photos that recorded BAR-Honda Formula 1 which set up a new land speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah during a test drive.

Gao Peng, Director of Today Art Museum said at the opening ceremony: “The exhibition ‘Momentous’ is one of the key projects of the year for Today Art Museum, we hope the audience likes such a groundbreaking experiment by combining art and Chinese social media.” Juerg Zeltner, Chief Executive of UBS Wealth Management said, “China is an important market for UBS, thus this Beijing exhibition mutually echoes the development of the corporation. In addition, we also hope to step further forward, to participate in an international art dialogue, for the promotion of cultural and creative development of the art world at an international level.”

The exhibition is curated by Professor Kornelia Imesch, art historian of the School of Modern Art and Architecture, the University of Lausanne, Switzerland and Jurg Wey. At the same time, it will also launch a lecture by the artist, along with the section of Q and A, in which Schmid will discuss his work, “Momentous” exhibition and his life and artistic career together with the audience.

About Hannes Schmid

The legendary photographer Hannes Schmid was born in Zurich in 1946, a great Swiss visual narrator. In the mid-1990s, Hannes became world-famous for re-creating the “Marlboro Man” series, while his images shaped the classic image of the American cowboy, and were adopted by artists such as Richard Prince. Since the 1970s, he has visited Africa, Belize, Bolivia, the mainland of China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, and Tibet, China, to reexamine the cultural and historical heritage of the global village. From 1977 to 1984, he had a good time, following more than 250 bands when they went on tour, including Kraftwerk, Queen, Blondie, Depeche Mode, and AC/DC. His work was the theme of an important retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland last year, and was also in the Brooklyn Museum in New York, Rubin Museum of Art in New York, collected by Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany and Swiss Foundation for Photography.

Hannes Schmid is represented by Swiss Persterer Contemporary Fine Arts and Beijing Aye Gallery which will feature his “Cowboy” series of work from July 13 to August 13, 2014.

About the exhibition

Title: Momentous: Hannes Schmid

Venue: 2nd floor exhibition hall of Building No.1, Today Art Museum

Duration: June 22 – July 17, 2014

Opening Hours: 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO.

Photo by Today Art Museum.