Condoms, rats, maggots, flies, dicks, cigarette butts,
beer cans. All have their place in Aurel Schmidt's elaborate and obsessively detailed
drawings that keep you enraptured long enough to forget about those who say she's too cliché or fake or just some hipster
Vice cum rag. There's no denying this lady's talent. So what if she likes to party?
We were first introduced in 2006 when she was 23 and living out of a suitcase in New York, thanks to Fecal Face's Isaac McKay-Randozzi. From hiding her drawings under her bed to working odd jobs in the city to make ends meet, she definitely “arrived” with a solo show at Dietch in 2008, her book Maneater, and now, as part of this years paired-down Whitney Biennial.
In an interview with Daily Beast, her contribution to the biennial, “a seven-foot-tall drawing of a sexy Minotaur with bulging muscles,
star-speckled black skin, a mane of delicate blue flowers, and a
six-pack of beer cans for abs” was called a “piece of shit” by co-curator Francesco Bonami. He was joking.
Her work is an absolute knock-out, and if you're smart, you'll go see her contribution to the biennial tonight for free because these jpegs just don't cut it.
Vice's Art Talk:
Being herself:
