STATEMENT OF WORK

Using improvisation, humor, and relationality, Alex Schmidt fondles fault lines between performance (figure modeling, live performance, and performance for video), social engagement (audience participation, pedagogical projects), text (scripts, songs, and books), and painting. These forms infest one another, coalescing into a holistic work that is conceptually concerned with the paradox of choice, the precarity of the gig economy, and social connection as a conduit for change. 

Schmidt’s process infinitely cycles; paintings act as props, a pose feeds a painting, a wall becomes a body, a poem is a sculpture. They question the site of production, treating each gesture as rehearsal for ongoing work. Performance is the muse, and transforms into paintings that function as props, set pieces, and co-stars. Schmidt points to the shadows, combining humor, tableau vivant, homage, and set design; vulnerable yet cheeky gestures of the butt-naked clown. Like the interdependent relationship between gig worker and client, painter and figure model, artist and patron; this cyclicality between mediums is utopian parasitism. The Utopian Parasite embodies the chaos and creativity of the artist-entrepreneur, who collages the contents of their compost bin in an effort to cobble a life.