Too Much Is Better Than Too Little: Alfred Hilsberg, ZickZack & the Invention of the German Underground
Oct 8 – Nov 7, 2026 Lower East Side
Tue, Oct 13German Tape Delinquents: Rise of the German Home Recording Tape Scene, 1980–1990, with Felix Kubin, 6:30–8:30 pm
Mon, Oct 26Help Yourself: East German Punk on Record, Tape, and Celluloid, talk by Seth Howes, 6:30–8:30 pm
Records, badges, flyers, posters, photographs and Super-8 films on Alfred Hilsberg and his German punk label ZickZack.
The show traces Hilsberg (1947–2025), the Hamburg journalist and promoter who championed German punk and ran ZickZack, which issued over a hundred post-punk, minimal synth and proto-industrial records from 1980. It is the first exhibition on him and the label outside Germany.
It draws on rare records and ephemera from Christian Iffland’s collection, photographs and documentation by Sabine Schwabroh, and early Super-8 films by Klaus Maeck. Curated by Sukhdev Sandhu with the Goethe-Institut NY.
Full details at variousartistsrecords.com
Gallery Lower East Side