“on another day cover the town with an immense lot of posters (to be fixed in the night before), inscribed (if it is done for instance on the fifth of november): “today is no day! tomorrow will be the fifth of november!!”

Tomas Schmit, Some Activities for the Biggest Town in the World (#20), 1963

In his actions, drawings, and texts, Tomas Schmit turned his attention from the specific to the holistic, dealing with fundamental processes, sensory perceptions, structures, ordinary experiences, and materials. A preoccupation with questions and characteristics of the temporal is a recurring aspect of his work. Time is examined by Schmit in its elementary form as the duration of an action, but also as a measure based on conventions and as an arbitrary feature of differentiation. The piece Some Activities for the Biggest Town in the World (#20), consisting of three actions – one of which is interpreted and realized by Hajnal Németh – was written by Schmit in 1963 for a performance in New York, which extended the radius of the action to the entire urban space and addressed an anonymous audience. Németh takes up this simple gesture and expands it, not least as a commentary on our altered sense of time in 2021, which has been affected by lockdown and travel restrictions.

Hajnal Németh (*1972 in Szőny / Hungary) lives and works in Berlin. In 2020 she founded Yellow Solo, a project space in Berlin for time- and process-based artistic formats that explore musical systems and references – including works by Arnold Dreyblatt, Dani Gal, Annika Kahrs, Anri Sala, André Vida, among others. Németh’s work has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions at renowned art institutions, including: The Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam (solo, 2017); Ludwig Museum, Budapest (2017; 2016; 2003); Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (2015–2017); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012); Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (mumok), Vienna (2009); Gropius Bau, Berlin (2005); Tate Modern, London (2004). In 2011, Németh presented her work in a solo exhibition at the Hungarian pavilion at the Venice Biennale.