The biographical forms Erik Schmidt has been working on since the late 1990s are on display in this comprehensive retrospective, which brings together works from nearly three decades. The title, taken from David Bowie, points to Schmidt’s playful yet profound approach to the construction of identity and the tensions between reality and subjectivity, social boundaries and private aspirations, political hierarchies and personal freedom. Produced by KINDL, Berlin, in collaboration with EACC, Castellón, the exhibition presents Erik Schmidt’s aesthetic universe in porous thematic groupings that intertwine drawing, video, performance, photography, collage, and painting.

A gallery of portraits introduces the theme of biographical crisis. The author’s fascination with erratic identities, as distorted motifs and mirrors of the self, emerges in bodies and faces, banal actions, and precise postures that crowd together in various formats. The confrontation with otherness and the ironic distance from one’s own image, characteristic of Schmidt’s practice, are also reflected in the film The Bottom Line (2018), screened alongside these portraits.

Another group of works presents the artist in the role of a traveler attempting to connect with foreign landscapes and alternative forms of urban reality. This escapism becomes an excuse to analyze the tension—political, sensual, aesthetic, moral—that lies beneath the surface of the stereotypical territories of desire. Here we see his series Palm Bombs (2022–2023), Hunting Grounds (2005–2008), the slide show Autostop (2009), and the film Fine (2019).

Stereotypical images of the business world and its relationship to masculine clichés within capitalist systems, in the realm of homosexuality and power structures, extend throughout the exhibition, sometimes more explicitly, sometimes subtly hidden. Sexual imaginaries permeate and overlap these representations, generating an aesthetically magnetic and conceptually subversive tension. In his film Suitwatcher’s Anonymous (2003) and other related works, the artist assumes the role of a kind of businessman, perpetrator, and victim of the system. The series of paintings Post Occupy (2013) and his film Cut/Uncut (2016) also relate to these notions.

With the aim of offering an insight into the beginnings of Schmidt’s artistic practice, another group of works focuses on the artist’s arrival in Berlin in the late 1990s: his artistic experiments in groups, his approach to the city, and his play with identity. Early drawings, magazines, photographs, and souvenirs evoke this formative moment and the appearance of his first «doppelgängers». Along with archival materials, videos such as I Love My Hair (1997), Parking (2001), the nine-part work Chat (2000), and pictorial views of Berlin are presented here.

This exhibition marks the first time in Spain that the video Rough Trade (2025), produced specifically for the occasion, is being shown. This audiovisual piece revisits motifs and characters from previous works in present-day Berlin and opens up a new line of aesthetic research in the author’s audiovisual work. The film’s restless dynamism is reminiscent of social media platforms, where visual information flows continuously, reflecting reality while generating a parallel visual world.

The exhibition was developed by KINDL –Center for Contemporary Art, Berlin.

The exhibition is supported by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.

The video work Rough Trade was produced by Fluentum.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication, edited by DISTANZ Verlag with texts by Kathrin Becker, Louisa Elderton, Krist Gruijthuijsen, and Yara Sonseca Mas, with the support of the Leinemann-Stiftung für Bildung und Kunst (Leinemann Foundation for Education and Art).