There are art spaces in unusual places all over Berlin: former breweries, butcher’s shops, kiosks, and department stores don’t stay empty long before they’re reopened as galleries. But Galerie Hošek stands out as a particularly creative conversion. It doesn’t even have a street number. And for good reason, because Hošek Contemporary is not located on any street, but on the water. Aboard the MS Heimatland, close to Fischerinsel, the team regularly presents changing exhibitions. An installation by artist Alex Flemming is currently on display. For “Lapides,” the 70-year-old Brazilian collected 100 old computers, discarded because they no longer worked properly or a newer, faster model came on the market. Flemming painted them with bright colors and gave them the names of their former owners.
The result is a colorful landscape of discarded objects. Old devices that carry a person’s entire being within them, that know passwords and search histories, and sometimes shared a bed with them, until they become nothing more than waste. By giving them a new coat of paint, Flemming gives them a second life. By presenting them here, on the Spree, he also gives them another layer of meaning: Flemming becomes the ferryman Charon from Greek legend, who transports the devices across the river of the dead into the underworld — and to a new beginning. He gives hope: for life after death.
Text: Laura Storfner / Photos: Mari Vass & Henrique Luz / Credit: Alex Flemming; Hosek Contemporary
Hošek Contemporary on Boot MS Heimatland, nahe Fischerinsel 2, 10179 Berlin–Mitte; map
Alex Flemming – Lapides until 23.06.2024
@hosekcontemporary
