GREGOR HILDEBRANDT: AUF FALSCHER SEITE IN DIE FALSCHE RICHTUNG

Almine Rech London is pleased to present 'AUF FALSCHER SEITE IN DIE FALSCHE RICHTUNG,' Gregor Hildebrandt's ninth solo exhibition with the gallery.

June 6 – July 26, 2025

Few if any artists have been able to harness the power of music in their work without making a peep, as has Gregor Hildebrandt. In his latest show, 'AUF FALSCHER SEITE IN DIE FALSCHE RICHTUNG' (On the wrong side in the wrong direction), he again brings his charmed silent cacophony to London.

The show’s title refers to his experience biking in London (where traffic flows in the "wrong" direction to that in Continental Europe). It is translated into the labyrinthine layout of the exhibition’s entry which leads us to Im Hof, (2020) a self-portrait on granite of the artist on a bike wielding a gigantic paintbrush à la Don Quixote charging windmills. This is perhaps the only work in the show that is neither a collage nor has a direct connection to music—two mainstays in the artist’s oeuvre.

There is a distinct Warholian bent in the shiny, glossy, pop glamour of Hildebrandt’s work, but his engagement with music is the driving force. For the past 25 years, Hildebrandt has primarily created a variety of unique collages intertwined with music. "I wanted to make paintings that were like pieces of music," he explains in an interview with curator Jérôme Sans. Music is everywhere in his work, whether it is apparent—as in the actual material (vinyl records, cassette tape, video tape)—or invisible (a specially chosen tune or film recorded onto a record or tape subsequently used as the physical material for the work). In the latter, the work is “charged” with this music, almost like a mystical totem. "Memorials to different songs that are important to me… that these good songs are not forgotten…" is how Hildebrandt puts it.

Though the works are seemingly hard-edged—minimalist, graphic, glittering, synthetic—a feeling of warmth and emotion somehow comes through, like the warmth of the sound from a vinyl record, possibly through Hildebrandt’s passion for what is infused in the material and what the material was intended to be used for—music. As he explains: "Without the particular content recorded on the tape, it’s likely the cassette wouldn’t interest me very much as material...the contents remain."