DIE ARRIVEDERCI-SHOW

generate ever new images. Every detail is just one element of a huge collage incorporating the full diversity of work series and themes by Gregor Hildebrandt.

Each of his exhibitions is a carefully coordinated structure. Upon entering the gallery space, we seemingly take to the stage, finding ourselves right in the middle of the ‘Arrivederci Show’ – framed by shimmering curtains of VHS tapes, their deep black melting into colourlessness. ‘Summertime’ from 1955 – Katharine Hepburn as Jane is spending a romantic holiday in Venice – flows down the walls.
Video tape collages, made from e.g. the film ‘Arrivederci Baby’, are inserted into the surfaces. A monumental bronze chess pawn makes its final move on the black floorboards.

One actual fragment of a memory of times past can be found in the lettering I WAITED PATIENTLY FOR THE LORD, AND HE INCLINED UNTO ME. The work ‘Scala’ transfers an element of Berlin club history, but also one of the artist’s long-standing personal memories, onto the wall like a spolia. It is a sentence from the book ‘Young Titans’ (1915) by Nescio, in which the writer tells of the youthful protagonists’ (once) romantic-idealistic ambitions and future plans for an artist’s existence. One of the characters wrote the biblical words in French letters over the kitchen door, which Gregor Hildebrandt translated into German and set on the wall above the bar of the Scala in 2009 – and took down again a year later when the club closed.

Since his childhood, Gregor Hildebrandt has been dogged by the works of Hungarian-German architect and artist György Lehoczky (1901-1979): a stained-glass window in his grandmother’s staircase in Saarbrücken was by that artist, whose design for a church window also hung in her house. With ‘eine zögernde Stunde’ (‘an uncertain hour’), Gregor Hildebrandt now dedicates a homage to this piece made from vinyl records. The title is borrowed from a poem by Gottfried Benn, which says: “The gods hold the balance / for an uncertain hour.”
A citation from Japan is found in the tondo made of vinyl. Its ornament is modelled on one of the many ornate man-hole covers found there: Cherry blossoms cover the round surface, their texture alone standing out against the black background in the glancing light, except for a few isolated white blooms. The cherry blossom lasts only a few days and represents new departures and transience at the same time.

Departure and transience also resonate in the ‘Arrivederci Show’. The exhibition will fill the premises of the “Klüser 2” with life for another “uncertain hour” before its doors close in May, after two decades. We are delighted to present this solo exhibition by Gregor Hildebrandt, which is simultaneously an impressive and nuanced visual farewell party!

Arrivederci Klüser 2 – we look forward to seeing you all again in the rooms on Georgenstraße!