Thyra Schmidt

Thyra Schmidt (1974) is a German visual artist.

Schmidt studied fine arts from 1996 to 2000 at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover, under Peter Tuma, and in 1999/2000 at the Hiroshima City University, Faculty of Art, Japan. From 2000 to 2001 she studied under Dörte Eißfeldt at the Braunschweig University of Art, and from 2001 to 2005 under Thomas Ruff at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. She lives and works in Düsseldorf.

In her work, Schmidt combines photographic and film techniques with predominately self written texts and develops installations for indoor and outdoor spaces. "They are interpersonal events, often based on personal experience, which she reflects in a poetically constructed manner."

At invitation by the Norwegian Goethe-Institut, Schmidt realized the art project I can't just be nowhere in the city center of Oslo, Norway, in 2009. "The title I can't just be nowhere speaks to the character of the Oslo installation in the public space and refers to the essentials in Schmidt’s work, namely the presence of the human figure, the particular moment and the relationship to the location. The photos and expressions that were projected on posters on buildings often related closely to the architectural context. They are large format photographic and text works with privately looking themes and are positioned onto various exterior surfaces of houses, public buildings or shops. This connected installation, which covered eleven sites in three inner urban districts of Oslo, assume ambivalence, as they oscillate between the intimate and the public."

In 2017, during her artist residence in Hongcheon, South Korea, Thyra Schmidt created the art work Two friends leave the room and walk in different directions – the sentence was translated into Korean and was exposed as textile banner at the facade of the Hongcheon Art Museum for the group exhibition Moving Shadow. The artist's “sentence contrasts the commercial messages. For the Korean public it had more a private or a complex philosophical character. […] Others, notably European beholders, saw a more political inspired reference. This might be evident, with regard to the location in South Korea and its historical separation of North Korea.” Thyra Schmidt “does not want to specify any interpretation. In the contrary, she hopes that ʽwhen read, an imaginary picture emerges. In the best case, many changing images. Images that evoke different associations. Images that allow complex interpretations.ʼ(Artist statement)”

From 2015 to 2017 Thyra Schmidt had a lectureship for artistic photography at the Institute for Art & Art theory at the University of Cologne.

• 2005 Muse heute, exhibition catalogue, ed. Kunsthalle Bremen
• 2010 Thyra Schmidt, I can’t just be nowhere, texts by Anne Rodler and Thomas W. Rieger, extra Verlag, ISBN 978-3-938370-42-1
• 2012 Fehlstelle, artist book, text by Valeria Liebermann, ed. Städtische Galerie Offenburg, modo Verlag, ISBN 978-3-86833-102-8
• 2019 Über Diebe und die Liebe / On Thieves and Love, artist's book, artist's text, Edition Cantz, ISBN 978-3-947563-67-8

• 1999 DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), scholarship for the Hiroshima City University, Faculty of Art
• 2006 + 2007 Staatskanzlei North-Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf, travel fellowship for artists
• 2009 ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), Stuttgart, project funding
• 2009 Kunststiftung North-Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf, project funding
• 2017 Artist-in-Residence, Pink Factory, Hongcheon, South Korea
• 2017 Grant from Stiftung Kunstfonds, Bonn

• 2005 zurück zum Glück (the return to luck), Gallery Gaby Kraushaar, Düsseldorf, Germany
• 2005 Pictures on billboards, Photographische Sammlung/ SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, Germany
• 2009 I can’t just be nowhere, Goethe-Institute Norway and ROM for Kunst og Arkitektur, Oslo, Norway
• 2013 Staccato, Kunstverein Paderborn, Germany
• 2014 Über Diebe und die Liebe (About Thieves and Love), Neuer Kunstverein Wuppertal, Germany
• 2015Blaue T-Shirts, Jeans und Turnschuhe (Blue T-Shirts, Jeans and Sneakers) Martin Leyer-Pritzkow Ausstellungen, Düsseldorf, Germany

• 2005 Muse heute, Städtische Galerie und Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany
• 2007 Plat(t)form 07, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland
• 2007 Abwesenheitsnotizen (with the artist group Fehlstelle), Abteiberg Museum, Mönchengladbach, Germany
• 2007 Dialoge, Museum für Photographie Braunschweig, Germany
• 2008 Stalking Utopia, Institute of Contemporary Art, Dunaújváros, Hungary
• 2008 Fehlstelle à Vallauris, video installation in the public space, Vallauris, France
• 2009 Rachel, pilot_ projekt für Kunst e.V., Düsseldorf, Germany
• 2009 couples and relations, Gallery DREI Raum für Gegenwartskunst, Cologne, Germany
• 2009 La Zona (with the artist group Fehlstelle), installation in the public space, Milan, Italy
• 2012 Fehlstelle, Städtische Galerie Offenburg, Germany
• 2012 Die Sprache ist das Haus in dem wir leben, Kunstfilmtag, Künstlerverein Malkasten, Düsseldorf, Germany
• 2013 Neblina no outro lado da rua (with Hannes Norberg and Juergen Staack), estemp, São Paulo, Brazil
• 2014 another place / another space / together, Off and project spaces, Quadriennale Düsseldorf, Germany
• 2014 5x3 (with Alien Oosting and Eleni Kamma), Kunstraum Düsseldorf, Germany
• 2017 Moving shadow, Hongcheon Art Museum, South Korea
• 2020 Sehnsucht nach dem Jetzt, (Longing for the present), with Ulrike Kötz, Ulrike Möschel, Julia Murakami, Rebecca Ann Tess a.others, Schloss Biesdorf, Berlin