Hannes Schmid: A Life in Pictures reflects the artist’s many lives

It’s a Friday afternoon, and inside a room glowing with soft light and lined wall-to-wall with vinyls, I first see Hannes Schmid — the Swiss photographer whose body of work involves capturing cowboys, cannibals, and rockstars. He’s got the sharp gaze of someone who’s seen it all, and yet, he opens our conversation with a corny joke. This seems to be emblematic of Hannes Schmid: serious, yet approaching everything with a certain spontaneity and warmth, and a gaze turned towards people.

This interest seems to be at the centre of Hannes Schmid: A Life In Pictures, a new exhibition at Appetite, the Singapore multi-concept space known for threading art, community, and cuisine into one experience. Curated by Tan Siuli, the exhibit surveys Schmid’s expansive photographic career, documenting fashion, music, and anthropological documentary, all united by Schmid’s intense yet warm lens.

Three distinct series anchor the show. The first, for Gods Only, documents the fading rituals of Chinese street opera in Singapore. This project began when Schmid, whose wife is Singaporean, stumbled upon an opera performance while walking with her through Punggol. Rows of empty red seats puzzled him, especially when he approached the chairs and were chased away by the troupes. 

That moment of curiosity sparked a long-immersion with the troupe, where Schmid spent four years with them, learning about their craft and even taking the stage himself, before he photographed the performers. As the empty seats were reserved for Taoist gods, the name for the project followed naturally. The resulting images are a deeply human record of a tradition that has since dwindled, marked with bold, red calligraphy done by his father-in-law, a calligraphy expert.

The next series is Blackstage, a series of portraits taken during Schmid’s years on tour with some of the most iconic rock bands of the 70s and 80s. Hired as a tour photographer by a number of bands, Schmid captured moments of musicians in their element — on the stage, and in poised poses behind-the-scenes. The works displayed at Appetite include music icons like Freddie Mercury, Mick Jagger and Phil Collins, freezing their charisma mid-performance in stark, blackened frames. 

Rounding out the exhibit are photographs that bring high fashion and wildlife together. Schmid, who photographed for Vogue, often used the glamour of fashion as a foil for conservation storytelling. Out of Africa, one of the exhibition’s most serendipitous images: a rogue elephant chasing a runway-ready crew. It’s a picture reminiscent of a movie, but was an entirely unscripted moment caught mid-shoot. The image made global headlines and landed on Time Life Magazine’s list of best photographs of the decade.

Yet perhaps the most moving part of this exhibit is what lies outside the frame. For the past decade, Schmid has devoted his 70s to Smiling Gecko, a philanthropic initiative he co-founded in Cambodia. The photographer can precisely identify what mobilised him: witnessing a burned child begging on the streets, he learned she had been trafficked as part of a forced begging ring. In his sharing, he reflected that it may be too late to change what he’s done, but not too late to change what he can do.

And what he does is Smiling Gecko. Today, the initiative spans 150 acres north of Phnom Penh and supports some 86,000 people through sustainable farming, education, and vocational training. Its campus includes the Farmhouse Luxury Resort and Spa, a beautiful cultural retreat that doubles as a hospitality training ground, and the Gong, a cultural centre dedicated to preserving Cambodian traditional arts. Every element of the project reflects a deep intentionality to go beyond aid, and to attempt to build lasting, local ecosystems.

Threaded through all these endeavours — from his earliest photojournalism to his later philanthropic work — is a singular eye and an irrepressible impulse: not just to witness, but to act. Schmid’s artistic life seems to have led him inexorably to this work, just as his empathy behind the lens now finds new expression in a new field.

A Life In Pictures runs from July 5 to August 10 at Appetite Singapore. More information can be found at https://appetitesg.com/event/alifeinpictures/