– CV
Kevin Schmidt
b. 1972, Ottawa, Canada
Lives and works in Toronto, Canada
Education
- 1997 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver
Selected Solo Exhibitions
- 2024 Lost and Found, with Holly Ward, Varley Art Gallery, Markham, Canada
- 2022 Intercom, Musée d’art de Joliette, Joliette, Canada
- 2018 We are the Robots, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver
- 2016 Felder Intervention #2, with Jan St. Warner, Farbvision, Berlin, Germany
EDM House, Galerie Van der Mieden, Antwerp, Belgium - 2015 Kevin Schmidt: The Commons, Kamloops Art Gallery, Kamloops, Canada
Kevin Schmidt: A Sign in the Northwest Passage, Esker Foundation, Calgary, Canada - 2014 Harmless High Altitude Balloon Amateur Radio Equipment, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany
EDM House, Fogo Island Cinema, Fogo Island Arts, Fogo Island, Canada
Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver - 2013 EDM House, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin
- 2011 A Sign in the Northwest Passage, as part of Subjective Projections, Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld, Germany
Don’t Stop Believing, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Hart House, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
A Sign in the Northwest Passage, billboard project, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada
Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal, Canada - 2010 Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver
- 2009 Wild Signals, Galerie van der Mieden, Antwerp, Belgium
Wild Signals, Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin, Germany - 2006 Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver
- 2005 Burning Bush, Artspeak, Vancouver
Fog, Mercer Union, Toronto, Canada - 2004 Fog, Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver, Canada
- 2003 Kevin Schmidt and Philip Dion: Untitled Landscape #1, Xeno Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Small Waves, Cold Water, Access Artist-Run Centre, Vancouver
Our Favourite Places, Forest Arts, Edinburgh, Scotland - 2001 Our Favourite Places, False Creek Community Centre, Vancouver
Selected Group Exhibitions
- 2022 Road Trip, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
On the Line: Documents of Risk and Faith, 2022 FotoFocus Biennial: World Record, Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati, USA - 2019 Unexplained Parade, Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver
another Landscape show, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada - 2018 The Midnight Sun Camera Obscura Project, in collaboration with Holly Ward, McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, Canada
- 2016 Lichtparcours 16, Braunschweig, Germany
The Midnight Sun Camera Obscura Project, in collaboration with Holly Ward, University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Lethbridge, Canada - 2014 L’avenir (looking forward), La Biennale de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
urSinnen, Färgfabriken, Stockholm, Sweden
Braunschweig PROJECTS, Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany
Unsettled Landscapes, SITE Santa Fe Biennial, Santa Fe, USA
ALPENLIEBE, Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe, Grossglockner High Alpine Road, Salzburg, Austria
Sympathetic Magic, Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Canada
Episode 5: in the beginning (soon), insitu, Berlin, Germany
Sights and Sounds: Global Film and Video, The Jewish Museum, New York, USA - 2013 Crossing Channels, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, Canada
Le Mois de la Photo, Maison de la Culture Frontenac, Montreal, Canada
Special Collection: Acquisitions and Archives, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver
The Biography of Images: Parallel Biographies, Audain Gallery, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver - 2012 Zoo, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
True North: Contemporary Art of the Circumpolar North, Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, USA
Untrue North, Yukon Arts Centre, Whitehorse, Canada - 2011 Nuit Blanche, Toronto, Canada
UP NORTH, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada - 2010 Magnetic Norths, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
unfinished business, Waterside Project Space, London, UK - 2009 Song Show, ArtLab, The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
Sentimental Journey, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver
Loaded, Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver
How Soon Is Now, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver - 2008 Psychology of a Pawn, Participant Inc, New York, NY
Sweet Dreams, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Hart House, University of Toronto, as part of Nuit Blanche, Toronto, Canada
Wild Signals, Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
Our Changing Landscape: Series III, Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, Canada
The Tree: From the Sublime to the Social, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver
Exponential Future, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver - 2007 Sound and Vision: Photographic and Video Images in Contemporary Canadian Art, Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France
Looking up from US, De Kist, Groningen, the Netherlands
Depiction, Perversion, Repulsion, Obsession, Subversion - Part 4, part of Exposing Cinema, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands - 2006 DOMESTIC MULTIPLEX, organized with Walter Phillips Gallery, multiple venues, Banff, Canada
Sound and Vision: Photographic and Video Images in Contemporary Canadian Art - A Selection of Works from the MMFA, NGC and AGO, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
274 East 1st, Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver, Canadaworks from the beaux-de Montréal
Canada Dreaming (Desires And Ideas For The Future By Artists Of The Biggest Country In America), Kunstverein Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany - 2005 Le Système des Allusions, VOX - Centre de l’image contemporaine, Montreal, Canada
Old Habits Die Hard, Art in General, New York, USA; Goethe Institute Library, New York, USA; Museum for Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia - 2004 Re-play, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, Canada
Emotion Eins, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany
Important Canadian Art, Ziehersmith, New York, USA
I Wanna Be a Popstar, loop - raum für aktuelle kunst, for Club Transmediale, Berlin, Germany
Old Habits Die Hard, Norwich Gallery, Norwich, UK; Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, Norway; Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul, Turkey; Motorenhalle, Dresden, Germany; Yeans / Rex / Galleri Box Kungshöjd, Goteborg, Sweden; Signal, Malmö, Sweden
Soundtracks - Replay, Mackenzie Gallery, Regina, Canada; Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, Canada; Blackwood Gallery, Toronto, Canada - 2003 Old Habits Die Hard, Sparwasser HQ, Berlin, Germany
Out of Sight: The Image Beyond the Index, Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver, Canada; Art Gallery of the South Okanagan, Penticton, Canada
Hammertown, Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool, UK; Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Canada - 2002 Hammertown, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
Satan, Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver
Voir Grand/Think Big, Liane and Danny Taran Gallery, Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, Montreal, Canada - 2000 Out of Sight: The Image Beyond the Index, Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, Canada
- 1998 Edge City, Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, Canada
- 1997 Viva Las Vegas, Havana Gallery, Vancouver
Suburbia, Helen Pitt Gallery, Vancouver - 1996 Student Invitational, Access Artist-Run Centre, Vancouver
- 1995 Images and Objects, BC Festival of the Arts, Kamloops, Canada
Books and Exhibition Catalogues
- 2024 Yan Wu, ed., Lost and Found, A Public Art Project by Kevin Schmidt and Holly Ward, Varley Art Gallery, Markham, Canada
- 2022 Lucy Flint, ed., On the Line: Documents of Risk and Faith, Gnomic Book, Portland, USA
- 2020 Nigel Prince, ed., Kevin Schmidt, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Kamloops Art Gallery, Kamloops, Canada; Black Dog Press, London, UK
- 2014 Rosemary Heather and Nicolaus Schafhausen, eds., EDM House, Sternberg Press, Berlin, Germany
- 2012 Robin T. Anthony and Cassandra Cook, eds., The RBC Collection: Selected Works, Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto, Canada
Marie Fraser, Zoo, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film, Durham, Canada - 2010 Sophie Brodovitch and Jennifer Cane, eds., Our Changing Landscape: Perspectives on and Interpretations of British Columbia, Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, Canada
- 2009 Kathleen Ritter, How Soon is Now: Contemporary Art from Here, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver
Jenifer Papararo, et al., Landscape, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver - 2008 Jessie Caryl, ‘Musical Chairs in the Realms of the Real’, in Anthology of Exhibition Essays 2006/2007, CJ Press, Vancouver
Scott Watson, Juan A. Gaitàn, and Monika Szewczyk, Exponential Future, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Emmy Lee, The Tree: From the Sublime to the Social, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver - 2007 Cate Rimmer, The Banal, SBC Galerie d’art contemporain, Montreal, Canada
Marina Roy, ‘Adventures in Reading Landscape’, in Vancouver Art & Economies, Artspeak and Arsenal Pulp Press, Vancouver, Canada - 2006 Stéphane Aquin, David Moss and Kitty Scott, Sound and Vision: Photographic and Video Images in Contemporary Canadian Art, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
- 2005 Juan A. Gaitàn, Burning Bush, Artspeak, Vancouver
Natalie De Vito, ‘Fear and Falsehoods’, exhibition essay, Fog, Mercer Union, Toronto, Canada
Marie Josée Jean, ‘The System of Allusions’, exhibition essay, Le Système des Allusions, VOX, Montreal, Canada - 2004 Lee Henderson, Important Canadian Art, ZieherSmith, New York, USA
- 2003 Sydney Hermant, Small Waves, Cold Water, Access Artist-Run Centre, Vancouver
Donato Mancini, ‘Interview with Kevin Schmidt’, in Small Waves, Cold Water, Access Artist-Run Centre, Vancouver - 2002 Michael Turner and Reid Shier, Hammertown, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
- 2000 Christopher Brayshaw, Out of Sight: The Image Beyond the Index, Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, Canada
- 1998 Christopher Brayshaw, edge city: new art from (& about) suburbia, Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, Canada
Magazines and Periodicals
- 2024 Yuluo Anita Wei, ‘Holly Ward & Kevin Schmidt at the Varley Art Gallery of Markham’, Akimblog, 11 April
- 2019 Leah Sandals, ‘When 1980s Classic Rock Becomes Public Art’, Canadian Art, 4 April
Carmen Victor, ‘Arctic Futurisms’, Canadian Theatre Review, Vol. 177, Winter - 2018 Kenneth Chan, ‘New light show synchronized to music wraps North Vancouver’s art gallery’, Daily Hive Vancouver, 10 December
Brent Richter, ‘Public art lights up Lower Lonsdale’, North Shore News, 22 November
Mitch Barnett, ‘Kevin Schmidt: We Are the Robots Exhibit Review’, Computer Audiophile, 27 September
Robin Laurence, ‘Kevin Schmidt’s far-out We Are the Robots invites you into a DIY world where you can spin vinyl and play keyboards’, The Georgia Straight, 31 July
Shawn Conner, ‘Hear ye, hear ye: Speakers transform VAG space into audiophile’s dream’, The Vancouver Sun, 22 July
John Kurucz, ‘Exhibit puts consumerism, democratization and records through spin cycle’, Vancouver Courier, 18 July 2018
Matt Humphrey, ‘New Vancouver Art Gallery exhibit a DIY masterpiece’, CBC News, 14 July
Jan Halvarson, ‘Kevin Schmidt: We Are the Robots Lights up the VAG with Interactive Installations’, Poppytalk, 13 July
Melissa Shaw, ‘Check out this musical interactive exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery’, Vancouver Is Awesome, 13 July
Rocio Robles Tardío, ‘Nuevos humos: ciudad y violencia’, EXIT, No. 70, May–July - 2017 Inger Wold Lund, ‘På Kant Med Verden’, Billedkunst, No. 1
- 2016 Michael Turner, ‘Okanagan Outpost’, Canadian Art, Spring
- 2015 Sarah Milroy, ‘SITElines: Curator Candice Hopkins and SITE Santa Fe’s “Unsettled Landscapes”’, Canadian Art, Winter
Ellyn Walker, ‘Indigenous Land as Common Ground: Understanding Decolonization through Unsettled Landscapes’, Prefix Photo, Issue 31, May
Murtaza Vali, ‘La Biennale de Montréal’, Artforum, February - 2014 Kevin Griffin, ‘Kevin Schmidt: the horror of the dance music never ending’, The Vancouver Sun, 9 April
Caia Hagel, ‘Unsettled Landscapes’, Border Crossings, Issue 132, December - 2013 Dan O’Brien, ‘Arctic Graffiti’, Geist, Issue 90, Fall
- 2012 Mitch Speed, ‘Phantasmagoria’, Frieze, October
- 2011 John Motley, ‘Kevin Schmidt’, Frieze, March
Charo Neville, ‘New Works by Kevin Schmidt’, BlackFlash, Issue 28.2, Winter - 2010 Kevin Griffin, ‘Kevin Schmidt Mines Media Images’, Vancouver Sun, 22 September
Jennifer Moss, ‘A Journey of Spiritual Exploration’, Vancouver Sun, 18 September
Kevin Schmidt, ‘A Sign in the Northwest Passage’, Hunter and Cook, Fall
Sarah Milroy, ‘The Olympic Movement’, The Globe and Mail, 5 February - 2009 Robin Laurence, ‘Thrilling Mix Spans Manga Ceramics, Tattooed Pigs’, The Georgia Straight, 12 February
- 2008 Anna Gritz, ‘Psychology of a Pawn’, Frieze online, 2 December
Kathleen Ritter, ‘Kevin Schmidt, Catriona Jeffries and Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver’, esse arts + opinions, Issue 63, Spring/Summer
Nancy Stoaks, ‘Exponential Future’, The Stranger, 19 March - 2007 Michael Turner, ‘Trunk L’oeil’, Vancouver Magazine, September
- 2006 Vanessa Kwan, ‘Schmidt’s landscapes examine assumptions’, The Georgia Straight, 28 September
Clint Burnham, ‘Outside looking in on the natural world’, Vancouver Sun, 23 September
Earl Miller, ‘Law and Ordering: On Evaluating Recent Canadian Neoconceptualism’, C Magazine, Issue 91, Autumn
Clint Burnham, ‘Artworks challenge and intrigue’, Vancouver Sun, 3 June
Julia Dault, ‘A Room of One’s Own’, The National Post, 15 June
Hans-Adelbert Karweik, ‘Kanadische Träume in Wolfsburg’, Braunschweiger Zeitung, 7 April - 2005 Christopher Brayshaw, ‘Burning Bush’, Doppelganger Magazine, Issue 1, October
Danielle Egan, ‘Burning Questions in the BC Interior’, The Globe and Mail, 16 Month
Rick Rhodes, ‘Night Vision’, The Globe and Mail, Date May - 2003 Peter Culley, ‘A Bustle in Your Hedgerow: Long Beach, Led Zeppelin and the West Coast Sublime’, Public, Issue 28
Sarah Milroy, ‘These artists know how to rock’, The Globe and Mail, 6 November
Special Projects
- 2015 Kevin Schmidt, How to Make a Large Format Photograph of the Horizon from the Edge of Space, print, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany
Kevin Schmidt, EDM House, vinyl record, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany
Public Commissions
- 2018 Reckless, The Polygon Gallery, North Vancouver, Canada
Residencies
- 2011 Artist-in-Residence, Fogo Island Arts, Fogo Island, Canada
- 2007 Ted Harrison Artist Retreat, Carcross, Canada
Awards
- 2017 Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award, Visual Arts, Canada Council for the Arts
- 2008 VIVA Award, Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts, Vancouver