Exhibitions
The EACC hosts The Rise and Fall of Erik Schmidt, a retrospective look at the critical universe of the Berlin artist
Curated by Yara Sonseca, the exhibition reviews Erik Schmidt's interdisciplinary work—from painting and photography to video and performance—to explore the contemporary social landscape between success, power and resistance.
From February 27 to May 24, we find at the Eispai d'Art Contemporani de Castelló (EACC), the exhibition by Erik Schmidt, The rise and fall of Erik Schmidt . The Berlin artist presents an exhibition, curated by Yara Sonseca, which was already presented at the KINDL – Center for Contemporary Art in Berlin (September 2025 – February 2026). The proposal reviews in depth the production of the German artist, who since the late nineties has developed an interdisciplinary corpus where painting, drawing, video, performance and photography coexist.
Schmidt's work is characterized by a strong documentary component based on the observation of everyday reality and social behaviors. According to the curator's analysis, his artistic process incorporates gestural and physical actions that often materialize in the fusion of techniques, such as painting on photographic prints or the intervention of newspaper pages. This methodology serves to portray the contemporary social and architectural landscape, exploring concepts such as success, power, autonomy and resistance.
The exhibition at the EACC is structured through several thematic blocks or "permeable chapters" entitled: Me and the Others , Workaholic , Escape and House . The tour culminates with a coda dedicated to his most recent film production, Rough Trade (2025), a work produced by Fluentum that premieres within the framework of this project.
The selection of works for this tour includes key pieces from recent years, such as large-format paintings focused on metropolises such as Tokyo, New York and Berlin (2018-2024), as well as the Palm Bombs series (2022/23). Also included are multimedia and film works of relevance in his career, such as Fine (2019) —filmed at Casa Baldi in Rome—, The Bottom Line (2018), Cut/Uncut (2015) and As Above Is So Below (2008). The exhibition is completed with historical series such as the Postoccupy canvases (2013), Downtown (2012) or the digital photographs Kurz Anhalten (2008), in addition to ink and pen drawings that date back to his beginnings in 2002.
This international collaboration between the Berlin-based KINDL center and the EACC is supported by the Department of Culture and Social Cohesion of the Berlin Senate and the Leinemann Foundation. On the occasion of the exhibition, the publishing house Distanz Verlag will publish a monograph that will collect the research of Schmidt, already consolidated as a reference in the representation of new European realities through the hybridization of languages.
