Alicja Kwade and Gregor Hildebrandt at Galería Pelaires

Artists: Alicja Kwade, Gregor Hildebrandt

Exhibition title: Mucho Más

Venue: Galería Pelaires, Mallorca, Spain

Date: September 2 – November 30, 2021

Photography: ©Roberto Ruiz, ©Grimalt de Blanch / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Galería Pelaires

Pelaires Gallery presents, for the first time in Spain, the exhibition Mucho Más, a joint project by Alicja Kwade (Poland, 1979) and Gregor Hildebrandt (Germany, 1974), both resident in Berlin.

With different discourses and methods, both artists approach and reflect on some of the major topics of artistic production and thought: the perception of time, personal memories, the composition and tension of matter, the relationship with the viewer and the dialogue between knowledge and the corporeality of the work, among others. Nor are they alien to the artistic discourse that precedes them. In Kwade’s works, references to western art history are frequent, as can be seen for example in her piece Cecin’estpasunepipe, which recalls and takes its name from a 20th century icon based on Magritte’s The Treachery of Images. Another example is Support, a partial replica of the ancient Greek Apoxyomenos. Gregor Hildebrandt’s artistic and conceptual universe revolves around music, both from a discourse point of view and from a plastic and visual point of view. He literally uses his most material side by integrating records and cassette tapes into his “canvases”. Hildebrandt’s audiovisual and musical archive is a source of knowledge that translates into a really complex artistic production with different readings.

In fact, the whole exhibition is conceived as an installation that occupies both spaces. It is a dialogue between the works. It is a series of shared points of convergence and, at the same time, of pieces that are very personal and unique to each artist.

In addition, Kwade and Hildebrandt are a couple and as such have been invited to be part of a medium to long-term project that Pelaires initiated with the exhibition by Jorinde Voigt and Christian Jankowsi back in 2018. The interest in mutual allusions and reciprocal memories makes this type of exhibition a unique event in which the conjunction of the artists leads to a singular and unexpected yet intimate result.

Alicja Kwade, Gregor Hildebrandt, Mucho Más, 2021, exhibition view, Galería Pelaires, Mallorca