Water (P.J. Harvey)

Gregor Hildebrandt

Conceptual, Berlin-based artist Gregor Hildebrandt transforms the near-obsolete relics of recording technology—like VHS, cassettes, and vinyl records—into sculptures, paintings, photographs and installations. To make his signature paintings, Hildebrandt applies tapes directly to the canvas, making impressions with them before finally adhering the cassettes themselves. He is also known to craft massive installations from these materials, including wall-sized “membranes” of extracted recording tape and galleries filled with old vinyl LPs that have been tackily remade into bowls. Though his formal vocabulary draws on minimalist and found-object traditions, Hildebrandt is just as interested in the references to pop culture and nostalgia embedded in the lost recordings. “I really love that there’s something inside the material that you can’t hear,” he says. “And when you see it, you only see black. You can have your own interpretation of the materials and it does something for your experience.”