Gregor Hildebrandt
I first met acclaimed contemporary artist Gregor Hildebrandt in June 2026, during an exhibition at Nicole Kurz Gallery in Weil am Rhein, Germany. The show brought his signature style into dialogue with works of his students.
Our interview, which takes place some three weeks later, explores Hildebrandt’s conceptual focus on the unseen soundtrack — a theme that runs through his entire oeuvre. It is against this backdrop that our conversation begins.
Interviewed by
THE GAZE Editor, Hazel Clarke
Q: Early influences — What were your early artistic influences?
“I'm not sure how influential it was but I grew up in a small provincial town in southwest Germany on the border of France.
"During my studies at Johannes Gutenberg‑Universität Mainz, near Frankfurt, I began making my first collages. I recorded audio tapes of songs, sticking them at first on the pages of a sketchbook, and progressing eventually to canvas.
“The late nineties was a moment when we all loved mix tapes – making compilations for special people in our lives. The radio was big at that time and everyone put their favourite songs on tapes as music wasn’t available in the way it is today.”
Q. Teaching as an Extension of Practice — How would you describe the guiding philosophy behind your teaching?
"I teach at Munich Art Academy. My simple approach is to be a supportive force to my students. They can come to me if they have a question or if they need guidance. I'm at the Academy twice a month, and I’m always available online during weekdays if students wish to discuss something."
Q. Mentorship and Curation — The recent exhibition at Nicole Kurz Gallery brought your practice into dialogue with your students’ work. It was lovely to witness the musical concert put on by the students who sang and played instruments — and I could see your hand in the curation of the show. What did that experience reveal to you about your own practice?
"The artists that exhibited with me were selected from my alumni students – those who had a particular affinity with music. I chose these criteria to whittle down the numbers to five or six, otherwise there would have been too many. It felt natural to engage music and sound with art and I found that both the exhibition and show worked very well together."
Q. Material and Repetition — Your work often engages repetition, rhythm, and material memory. How do these elements continue to evolve in your current compositions? I'm thinking of the colourful conical column sculptures used for your show at the Perrotin Gallery.
“The piece you mention is built from shaped vinyls. I found them in a local flea market, sold as bowls for nibbles. I was fascinated at the beginning by the idea of being able to put something inside music. I began buying lots of vinyls and then thought about what I could do with them and that's when I started placing them together in columns.
"My work was originally mainly black. It then evolved to black and white, and then shifted into colour. Now I tend to revert to black”
Q. Sound and Silence — Sound — and the absence of it — has long been central to your visual language. Why is that important to you and how is this relationship shifting in your recent work?
“What intrigues me is that the sound lives inside the art but you can’t listen to it — the works lay silent. I am fascinated by the idea of having music or a film hidden inside the painting that you can’t hear or see. It’s rooted in my early desire to make paintings centred on emotions such as vulnerability as reflected by the song by The Cure 'Boys don’t Cry', which was released in 1979. This visual language aligns deeply with my lifelong engagement with music both as a material and emotional archive.”
Q. Berlin as a Creative Engine — How does Berlin’s cultural landscape including its club scene shape your artistic thinking today, and where do you feel its influence most strongly?
"For me, Berlin is good and also because I have a nice place to live that's not too expensive. However, I have a feeling that the magic of the city is slowly disappearing. Good restaurants are closing although there are still some excellent ones that are fighting to stay open. Berlin is quite wonderful in the summer and remains a city where I am excited to show and try out new ideas."
Q. Conceptual Focus — Can you explain further your concept of using VHS tapes in this manner?
“2013 was a key milestone in my practice using VHS tapes. I created for Almine Rech gallery in Brussels, a show entitled ‘Orphic Shadows’ featuring 'Orphée', the film by Jean Cocteau. The exhibition was significant for me because it marked one of my early engagements with Cocteau’s Orphée as source material.
“Orphic” refers directly to the film’s shadow motifs, which I translated into tape‑based wall works. The shadow‑like forms created by the dark, reflective surfaces of magnetic tape are the reason for the title. I recreated in one corner of the show, a painting by
René Daniëls from1987 "
"In 2015, for my show ‘auf Wasser Schlafend rauscht das Meer’ at Wentrup in Berlin, I repeated the same technique of covering the entire gallery space in VHS tape, recreating the composition I had produced in Brussels two years earlier.
"I then went on to show multiple tape‑based installations, introducing variations to the technique across major cities of the world including Hong Kong, Prague and New York. These exhibitions extended my conceptual focus on the unseen soundtrack, which as mentioned, now runs through my entire oeuvre.
“Building on my earlier comments relating to sound and silence, and the idea of tape‑based art pieces containing sound that cannot be heard, I find it all the more interesting that in reality the film in my work is also untouchable, as convention requires that the visitor does not handle the art piece.
"Therein lies the conundrum - embedding inside art, sound and images that cannot be heard, touched, or seen — this thrills me."
"The strips of film contain recordings from the movie 'The Garden' — a Czech film from 1995. The viewer cannot experience the movie; they see only the tapes, Conceptually, the work plays on the words ‘park’ — both the act of parking and a large garden — and ‘poco,’ meaning a small portion, as well as the name of the retail store near to my studio.
"The show is currently under preparation in my studio. If a visitor wishes to see my work now, they can park in the POCO store car park. When the show's fully installed in the gallery, the visitor will perceive only small snippets of the film’s thread, from behind the reflective surface of the glass. It's a conceptual play on interconnected elements, with the words ‘poco’ and ‘park’ taking on greater meaning."
Q. Future Directions — Looking ahead, what new territories — conceptual or material — are you interested in exploring?
“My next exhibition is in Berlin. I’m very excited since it’s my hometown, and I hope all my friends will come. The show takes place at Wentrup during Berlin Art Week, with an opening on 10th September, 2026.
“I’m also having a show in Munich in the autumn. I’m equally excited because it’s the city where I teach, and I hope my colleagues and students will attend. After that, my next show will be in Los Angeles with Galerie Perrotin in May 2027.
“For the show in Berlin, which is entitled 'Park by POCO', I’ve made a large‑scale installation that the viewer encounters from the outside through the gallery window. Behind the surface of the window, there are semi-transparent VHS tapes, forming a kind of curtain, and depicting an abstract composition of gestural brushstrokes.
Amazing, I think — and as the voice of Alicja, his partner, drifts in from the background, our interview concludes naturally.
I circle around the thought that Hildebrandt’s works consistently expose portals that offer fragmented glimpses into withheld territories. Tapes and vinyls give an allure, yet shadows and opacity obscure. Smooth surfaces hint at entry into imagined worlds without granting total access. It’s a paradox that sets elusive narratives against the precision of his striking and meticulously constructed installations. Now that's seductive.