Gregor Hildebrandt

Gregor Hildebrandt is a German artist born in 1974. After completing his university studies he earned his diploma from the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin in 2002. He then received scholarships, notably from the Deutsches Studienzentrum in Venice in 2003. Today he lives and works in Berlin.
Gregor Hildebrandt’s first medium are pre-recorded audio cassette tapes, of which he makes extensive use. He applies the tape directly onto the canvas, onto photographic prints, and in installations that fill an entire gallery. He begins his paintings by sticking the coated face of the magnetic tape on the canvas. He then exerts pressure over it with a brush or roller, then removes the tape to create precise imprints sporadically covering the surface of the canvas. He repeats the process, and finally, glues all the tape on the canvas to realise that which he calls ‘negative painting’. He makes his sculptures out of vinyl discs in the form of bowls, then sometimes stacks them to create that which he calls ‘a sonic wall made of pillars of disks’.
Although the works of Gregor Hildebrandt make formal reference to Minimalism, the deliberate addition of a large number of subjective or autobiographical citations indicate in an irrefutable manner that his work does not belong to that movement at all. For him, the magnetic tape of a cassette, which originally served a function of preservation, plays an important role as an artistic medium: that of adding a new and ‘invisible’ dimension to his images. Playing with perception in this manner is a major characteristic of his work: he invites the viewer to ‘complete’ the image him or herself mentally, grasping the beauty of things past.
The works contain references to music, cinema, literature, and especially to art history, revealing Gregor Hildebrandt’s motley universe. Ultimately, the works are complex montages where elements of various origins combine and interpenetrate. Hildebrandt uses materials from daily life, lacking aesthetic or theoretical ambition, to play with certain aspects of conceptual art and minimal art, by connecting them with his personal life and experience of popular culture.
Hildebrandt is represented in various public collections, such as in the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Berlinische Galerie in Berlin, the Museum van Bommel van Dam in Venlo, and in the Sammlung zeitgenössische Kunst des Bundesrepublik in Germany.

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