From the very beginning Laurent Schmid has always worked at the intersection of art and science. His work irritates with incessant para-scientific coquetries, leading to ambiguous statements. “Truth” mutates into the projection of wishes or expectations and can be interpreted in various ways. It is within this field of tension that he keeps searching for interesting stories, escalating further by weaving in absurd conspiracy theories or mixing malicious truths with lies. The artist puts his basic mistrust in pictures at the centre of his interest.

The works exhibited in “Knotholes” are based on photographs of atomic bomb tests in Nevada, taken by the American scientist Harold E. Edgerton in the 1950s. The edited pictures were used for propaganda purposes in order to glorify the atomic power of the USA and to mislead enemy militaries about the explosive force of the bombs. Laurent Schmid has now created new forms and therefore his works are openly declared fakes – continuing the known discourse about the validity of pictures. In the video works featured in “Flying Knotholes” the forms mutate into pulsing objects, shuttling back and forth between micro organic structures and science-fiction aesthetics.

The double object “Pathetic Grabing” pays homage to Edgerton. The strangely wired disco balls, intended to remind the viewer of models of the early atomic bombs, are placed on wooden pedestals, constructed according to photographic documents of Edgerton’s experiments. Laurent Schmid’s work infiltrates, cheats, mixes and unsettles by constantly questioning the habits of our perception, for example, by coloring pictures of atomic models from the 30s, blowing them up to a much larger scale and thus making the works look like neo pop art. The passage of time is the object of his irony and he catapults the trash sculpture from the onset of atomic technology over the pacifistic 70s and 80s into the future.

He considers his comical paper works as sketches of his ideas, though they can be looked at as independent works. The artist is a virtuoso in combining different media and in using the entire repertoire of contemporary art.

Bernhard Bischoff, October 2010