The found objects become a gem, like the shells carried home from the beach, which only unfolds their real value at home as a quotation of a memory. They may be things from Berlin today, some could also come from another city, but then it would be another drawer that unloads them there in front of us, dusted off to present their finds cleaned and neatly lined up.

When we look at old drawings or historical postcards of familiar scenes and places in Berlin, we sometimes involuntarily ask ourselves why they seem so different to us. First of all, there are the missing cars, but also the many colorful posters, small stands, and stickers, wildly proliferating advertisements or disturbing bicycles that get in our way - all the rubbish of everyday life.

Now, in this particular situation of the pandemic, things are being laid bare again. Lena Lisken has taken up this view of uncovering and intensified it. The city, the objects stand before we are reassured and with regained sovereignty. They not only proudly assert their solitary status, but are also allowed to radiate out into the free, deep black space of associations that Lisken makes available to us around them. As if in passing, Lena Lisken herself also emerges as a new outstanding figure on the photographic stage. Let us be captivated and carried away by her images.

You don't have to know the overpainted Cupid behind the scene of Vermeer to also ensnare the surrounding space and background of the finely chiseled objects in Lisken's pictures with stories of their own.

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