Gregor Hildebrandt
Lümmel, 2023
Bronze Sculpture, 426 x 142 x 120 cm, 2023
Courtesy of the artist and Almine Rech
Supported by IFA – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Stuttgart
On the central square of Labin’s old town, in front of a neo-classical ensemble, Gregor Hildebrandt (*1974) has placed a bronze sculpture more than four meters high, modelled on the figure of the pawn in the game of chess. Like the urban setting in which it stands during the Biennial, the figure’s design dates from the 19th century. Named after the English chess master Howard Staunton, the pieces were patented and put on the market in 1849. Hildebrandt is fascinated by the globalised variety of forms that have emerged since then. He collects the pawns, puts the collection on display in specially made showrooms, ambiguously calling it the “Pawn Shop”. Hildebrandt is a master in the repurposing, renaming and reinterpretation of everyday objects. He incorporates heterogeneous elements and references from music, film, literature, and art history in his multifaceted work. This play with ambiguities and context-shifted readings is consistently continued in Labin: Hildebrandt’s artistic gesture points to a context that is often neglected – the economic importance of agriculture (in German the name of the chess piece is farmer [Bauer]).
Gregor Hildebrandt Lümmel, 2023. Photo by Jules Spinatsch.
Na središnjem trgu labinskog starog grada, ispred neoklasicističke cjeline, Gregor Hildebrandt (*1974.) postavio je više od četiri metra visoku brončanu skulpturu modeliranu prema figuri pješaka u šahu. Kao i urbano okruženje u kojem se nalazi tijekom Bijenala, dizajn figure datira iz 19. stoljeća. Nazvane po engleskom šahovskom majstoru Howardu Stauntonu, figure su patentirane i stavljene na tržište 1849. Hildebrandt je fasciniran globaliziranom raznolikošću oblika koji su se od tada pojavili. Skuplja pijune, koje izlaže u posebno napravljenim izložbenim prostorima, dvosmisleno ih nazivajući „Zalagaonicama“. Hildebrandt je majstor u prenamjeni, preimenovanju i reinterpretaciji svakodnevnih predmeta. U svoj višeznačan rad uključuje heterogene elemente i reference iz glazbe, filma, književnosti i povijesti umjetnosti. Ova igra dvosmislenosti i kontekstno pomaknutih čitanja dosljedno se nastavlja u Labinu: Hildebrandtova umjetnička gesta ukazuje na kontekst koji se često zanemaruje – gospodarsku važnost poljoprivrede (na njemačkom naziv ove šahovske figure je “seljak” (Bauer).