David Helbich Research Artist

David Helbich (Berlin) has been living and working in Brussels since 2002. He studied composition in Amsterdam and Freiburg.

He is a sound-, installation- and performance artist, as well as a photographer and teacher, who creates a divers range of experimental and conceptual works for the stage, paper and online media and in public space.

His trajectory moves between representative and interactive works, pieces and interventions, between conceptual work and actions. His concepts are often presented in print, such as photo and illustrated score books as well as in live performances, sound interventions, audio guides and on social media. Many of his works address concrete physical and social experiences. A recurrent interest is the direct work with a self-performing audience.

In the last 15 years, his work has been shown all over Europe, and recently presented a.o. at
D Museum (Daelimmuseum, Seoul), Queens Museum (NYC), Martin-Gropius-Bau (Berlin), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Oude Kerk (Amsterdam), UnionDocs (New York) and Café OTO (London).

Helbich received the First Prize for the composition award 'ad libitum' (Stuttgart) for his piano book “Fur aufrichtiges Klavier” (2011).

In 2013 he published the album “Outcuts” at the label Surfacenoise.
His music has been played o.a. by Ensemble Modern, Maulwerker and Scenatet.
He is the author of the bestselling photo books “Belgian solutions” - volume 1 and volume 2 (Luster, Antwerp). Both have recently been added to the national photo book heritage collection, catalogue and exhibition “Photobook Belge” (FOMU-Antwerp).

In 2016, Helbich was granted a three-years scholarship for artistic development and research by the Flemish community.

Next to being a regular composition teacher at the Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, Helbich teaches at art academies in Europe abroad. He occasionally collaborates with choreographers such as Mette Edvardsen (NO/BE) and Heike Langsdorf (DE/BE).