aurel schmidt

maybe its the just concluded art basel in miami, or louis vuitton celebrating the work of the late stephen sprouse, or my recent entry on keith haring, or my roomate's scattered drawings all over the living room, or the spectacular reincarnation of interview magazine and its current art issue with the divine cate blanchett on the cover, or all of the above plus more. lately it just seems like art is everywhere again and its been getting massive amounts of attention. not that it really left, but it hasn't really enjoyed this much buzz since the eighties. and some of that attention owes a debt to fashion with all the high profile collaborations that made household names of takashi murakami and richard prince. heck even donatella versace jumped into the collabo bandwagon by working with dutch collage artist tim roelofs for her fall/winter 08 collection. considering the amount of media attention fashion shows receive because of the world's current fascination with celebrity culture who occupies half the front row and can almost be blamed for the proliferation of counterfeit goods for the public hungry to emulate those stars, there are millions of people out there with fake stephen sprouse or murakami vuitton bags walking around acting as free publicity for art and its artists. why the sudden interest of something as banal as fashion to associate itself with art? perhaps its fashion's insecurity as being looked at as merely a craft compared to art that triggered this phenomenon. i mean if you can't be one of them, then just be a hanger on to it as much as you can. or maybe not.
fashion or not, one thing is certain, that there is suddenly a huge wave of young artists that are not only getting attention because of their ability to shock the establishment, but also because to put it plainly, they're pretty fuckin' brilliant and insanely original. and while fashion might've played a part in redirecting some of the attention back to the art world, ultimately its the artists that are responsible for maintaining some of that shine. and in my own personal humble opinion, artist aurel schmidt is for me personally one that shines the most.
i'm no qualified art critic or anything but i know what i like, and i dig aurel's work. its kinda dirty, kinda thrashy, downright weird and spooky, but done with the wispiest, most delicate lines from a pencil. its fucking ridiculous!! plus her collages she did with burnt paper makes me super excited and inspires me to be make stuff (only in my head because i have tons of ideas and no follow through). it reminds me of some of my other personal favorites like egon schiele. there's something dark about it, but its arrestingly, and hauntingly beautiful. you feel the work that's been put in and that's what really speaks to me. its easy to feel a piece if you can see the passion the artist poured in. plus she's canadian so i gotta show some love to that and some pride that one of us actually got out of this frozen tundra and found her way in new york city where she is now based. i'm just now imagining how insanely dope it would be if one day she ends up doing a collaboration with someone like alexander mcqueen. that shit would be so fucking off the chain.


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