THE ISMAEL SHOW

GREGOR HILDEBRANDT

 

Avlskarl Gallery er stolte af at præsentere The Ismael Show, Gregor Hildebrandts fjerde soloudstilling i galleriet.

Titlen The Ismael Show refererer til en scene i Ingmar Bergmans berømte spillefilm Fanny og Alexander fra 1982. I et nærmest hypnotisk klip fremmaner den kønstvetydige figur Ismael et syn for Alexander, der viser biskoppens hus i flammer. Ismael fremstår således som en nærmest magisk figur, der kan visualisere det, der ellers ikke ville kunne ses.

På samme vis er Gregor Hildebrandt optaget af materialiserer det usynlige, det som ikke har en krop eller en fremtrædelsesform, i sine mørke malerier. En del af værkerne i The Ismael Show er en del af Hildebrandts fortløbende serie af rip off paintings, som fremviser en negativ form. Værkerne er først betrukket med en slags dobbeltklæbende tape og herefter bemalet med et fikserende middel på udvalgte dele af lærredet. Efterfølgende er VHS- eller kassettebånd påført i lange striber og fjernet igen, så kun dets overflade står tilbage på værket som et print. 

Hildebrandts værker refererer som oftest til populærkulturelle produkter som film eller musik, der gerne er fysisk tilstede i værkerne i form af kassettebånd, filmstriber eller vinylplader. Han er interesseret i tanken om, at det, der normalt ikke har en fysikalitet – digtet, musikken eller de levende billeder – kan transformeres til ren materialitet på store lærreder eller i skulpturer. Her ligger musikken eller filmen gemt i værket, som en hemmelighed, der på én gang er utilgængelig og helt fysisk tilstede. Musikkens ofte mørke og romatiske universer, som vi finder dem hos David Bowie, The Cure eller Einstürzende Neubauten, oversættes til flader, ligeledes mørke, gådefulde og dog fyldte med en dunkel poesi.

I udstillingens sidste rum brydes den mørke grundtone af en serie skulpturelle værker, hvis farvepalette peger på den italienske designer Puccis signaturfarver. Skulpturerne ligner en slags søjler, hvor lukkede skaller tårner sig op ovenpå hinanden. Skallerne er bøjede vinylplader, som Hildebrandt har købte på et loppemarked, hvor de blev solgt som skåle. En slags dobbelt bearbejdede readymades, hvor den immaterialle musik nu fungerer som beholdere for andre ting – eller antage nye skulpturelle betydninger, mens deres hemmelighed fortsat er intakt.

Gregor Hildebrandt (f. 1974, Bad Homburg, DE) er uddannet fra Hochschule der Künste i Berlin i 2002. Seneste soloudstillinger inkluderer Kunsthaller Rostock, Casada Santa Pau, Kunsthalle Praha, Mie van der Rohe Haus, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Künstlerhaus Betanken, Saarland Museum og Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, samt gallerierne Almene Rech og Galerie Perrotin. Hildebrandt bor og arbejder i Berlin.

Tekst af Louise Steiwer

 


Avlskarl Gallery is proud to present The Ismael Show, Gregor Hildebrandt’s fourth solo exhibition in the gallery.

The title The Ismael Show refers to a scene in Ingmar Bergman’s famous feature film Fanny and Alexander from 1982. In an almost hypnotic clip, the gender-ambiguous character Ismael conjures up a vision for Alexander that shows the bishop’s house in flames. Ismael thus appears as an almost magical figure who can visualize what would otherwise be hidden.

In the same way, Gregor Hildebrandt is concerned with materializing the invisible, that which does not have a body or a form of appearance, in his dark paintings. Most of the works in The Ismael Show are part of Hildebrandt’s ongoing series of rip-off paintings, which present a negative form. The works are first covered with a kind of double-adhesive tape and then painted with a fixing agent on selected parts of the canvas. Subsequently, VHS or cassette tape is applied in long strips and removed again, so that only its surface remains on the work as a print.

Hildebrandt’s works most often refer to popular cultural products such as films or music, which are often physically present in the works in the form of cassette tapes, filmstrips, or vinyl records. He is interested in the idea that what normally does not have a physicality – the poem, the music, or the moving images – can be transformed into pure materiality on large canvases or in sculptures. Here, the music or film is hidden in the work, like a secret that is both inaccessible and completely physically present. The often dark and romantic universes of music, as we find them in David Bowie, The Cure, or Einstürzende Neubauten, are translated into surfaces, also dark, enigmatic, and yet filled with poetry.

In the last room of the exhibition, the dark basic tone is broken by two sculptural works whose color palette points to the signature colors of the Italian designer Pucci. The sculptures look like a kind of columns, where closed shells tower up on top of each other. The first shells were bent vinyl records that Hildebrandt bought at a flea market, where they were sold as bowls. He then continued to shape more using random records as well as records he had pressed with the album from the Grzegorzki Record label. A kind of doubly processed readymades, where the immaterial music now functions as containers for other things – or assume new sculptural meanings, while their secret remains intact.

Gregor Hildebrandt (b. 1974, Bad Homburg, DE) graduated from the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin in 2002. He has recently had solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Rostock, Kunsthalle Praha, Mies van der Rohe Haus as well as at the galleries Perrotin and Almine Rech. Hildebrandt lives and works in Berlin.

Text by Louise Steiwer