Edgar Schmitz (Germany, 1968) is an artist who produces escapist backdrops from film, sculpture, animation and writing. His work is concerned with developing modes of withdrawal from the given terms of the present, and he often collaborates with protagonists, settings and matter of all sorts, to animate the infrastructures he works within to the point where they start providing the raw material for speculative, cinematic versions of the near future.

His work was part of A.C.A.D.E.M.Y (Vanabbemuseum 2006), No Soul for Sale (Tate Modern, 2010), British Art Show 7 (Hayward Touring, 2010/11) a.o., and has been presented in solo exhibitions at ICA, London (with Liam Gillick, 2006), FormContent (London, 2010), Cooper Gallery (Dundee, 2012) and Himalayas Art Museum (Shanghai, 2015).

His book Hubs and Fictions (with Sophia Hao) was published by Sternberg Press in 2016. He is currently working on Alovestorysomewherearound2046 (with Pieternel Vermoortel), Choreographic (with Mårten Spångberg), Animate Assembly (with Verina Gfader and Esther Leslie) and Imminent Futures (with Sophia Hao).