BLOMMERS & SCHUMM PRESENTS MID-AIR: A NEW EXHIBITION AT FOAM

words NATALIE GAL

I'm always interested when people who met during their studies create something together after leaving the firm and secure walls of college. As someone who still studies and is part of that world, while watching how the professional field unfolds, Blommers & Schumm is a motivating example. Since it was in the 1990s when Anuschka Blommers and Niels Schumm met at Amsterdam’s Gerrit Rietveld Academy and soon began collaborating.

Fast forward to now, and the world looks very different, not just in art, but in the way we perceive reality itself. AI is everywhere, whether toxically or captivatingly, it is definitely a modern fever dream that makes us question a lot. How many times have you heard just this week someone say, “Is this AI?” We are slowly drifting into an era of constant disbelief, questioning small fragments of reality to the brink of disassociation. I wonder — could art give us guidance?

Blommers & Schumm are proving a point, creating visuals that may seem post-modern but are deeply human. They are precise, not like robots, but like emotive artists. They capture a moment in time — and we are left in that moment to think — until we move on to the next image, diving into a new macro world once again. The duo is inventive, inspired by tradition but not bound by it. Their art is sharp, and it is raw.

I catch myself writing “their art makes you feel” — what a cliché… so let me rephrase. Their art makes you taste, makes you hear, makes you feel not in an emotional sense, but in a primal one. You can sense a metallic taste, hear the drop of a pin, feel the softness of fabrics, just allow yourself to do so.

The exhibition brings together 25 years of work and is the first major solo exhibition of the duo. You can immerse yourself at Foam from 20 September 2025 until 23 February next year.

left: L’escar go Gourmand magazine, 2012 © Blommers & Schumm. — (No animals were harmed during this shoot)

middle: Jana for Agenda Magazine, 2024. Styling by Danielle van Camp © Blommers & Schumm.

right: Nadja for Buffalo Magazine, 2019. Styling by Harry Lambert © Blommers & Schumm.

left: Ciara, 1998. Styling by Suzanne Koller © Blommers & Schumm.

right: Carcy Magazine Styling Hannes Hetta, 2018 © Blommers & Schumm.