As Berlin’s freezing winter echoes along the wide sidewalks of Leipziger Straße, stepping through the door of the Julia Stoschek Foundation (JSF) greets you not just with an exhibition but with an uncanny “in-between zone” where time, space, and memories descend upon you like ghosts. This week on Apartment No: 26’s Berlin route, we trace “Entry through medieval wounds,” the most comprehensive overview of Mark Leckey’s last decade.
Yellow Light from Medieval Wounds: Hauntology and the City
The moment you enter the exhibition, you feel your senses under assault. An intense, indefinable scent fills the space, the sickly glow of yellow sodium street lamps, and in the background, distorted medieval melodies seeping in as if from a dream… Leckey invites us not merely to a video art show but to a palace of memory haunted by specters from his adolescence—ravaged maps, abandoned bus stops, and highway underpasses.
In the opening room, the neon lights of an arcade-style sign flashing “VOID” flicker on and off, while right beside it loops “Empty London 2020,” scanning the deserted streets of quarantined London. Here, “void” is not just a theme but a shiver you feel on the back of your neck rather than see—one that permeates all 50+ works.
Descending to the Basement: Gregorian Hymns and Black Oily Floors
As you descend into the depths of JSF, to the basement, the exhibition’s uncanniness reaches its peak. Imagine a Gregorian hymn played on a kazoo—disturbing yet childlike… Pipes overhead, moments when hooded youths slice through darkness with phone flashlights, and glossy black oily floors give the viewer the feeling “I shouldn’t be here.”
Rising like a colossal sculpture in the middle of this dark storage space is “Nobodaddy,” actually a massive speaker system. From Leckey’s distorted voice pours the sentence “When an image is attacked, it bleeds,” a salute to Byzantine iconography. For the artist, images are—like in medieval belief—“wounds” or “doors” opening onto the sacred or ghosts of the past.
Beside it, a bus stop shelter featuring an advertisement with a close-up photograph of an eyeball.
Ghosts of Rave Culture: Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore
The exhibition’s climax is undoubtedly “Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore,” documenting British rave culture from the 70s to the 90s like a ritual. As you are shaken by the physical vibrations from massive speakers, images of dancing young bodies on screen—merged with glitches from analog technology—are reanimated like “Frankenstein’s monster.”
Especially in “Haunted Version of Fiorucci: 20 Years Later,” the footage is so faded and blurred that you directly witness the destruction time has wrought on these “ghosts.” For Leckey, the internet and archives are not mere data repositories but personal and collective graveyards of memories awaiting exorcism.
Visit Notes:
Location: Julia Stoschek Foundation, Leipziger Straße 60, Berlin.
Dates: Continues until May 3, 2026.
Experience: We recommend setting aside about 90 minutes for this exhibition and giving yourself time to feel the physical impact of the sound installations, especially in the basement.
Important: The show is a melancholic yet technological ritual wandering the gap between analog and digital worlds.
Apartment No: 26 Note
On one of Berlin’s longest nights, walking this exhibition under sodium lamps is the perfect time to realize that what we think we remember is merely a reflection. After emerging from the harshness of Camden Bank onto the city’s cold concrete, you’ll wonder whether the ghosts followed you out.
