Text by Arnon Grunberg, 28th of May 2018
Manhole covers have never had my interest until I met Alex Fischer in the Stedelijk Museum
in Amsterdam where I was staying as part of the ‘Give us the Museum’ project.
The museum provided artists who were taking part in the project and me with one room,
which was perhaps already too much or too little depending on whom you asked.
I met Alex while he was busy hanging Günter Förg's paintings.
He gave me a plastic token which depicted a manhole cover and later handed me a book:
Drainspotting - dis>COVER<ing the (under)WORLD
featuring 330 drawings of manhole covers. Alex calls it Drain-cover for short.
He also gave me a framed drawing of a manhole cover that I exhibited in my gallery;
my workroom in the Stedelijk soon became a gallery.
More museum employees no doubt consider themselves to be artists.
But until now (we had one week to go) only Alex spoke about his own art.
He let slip that working in museums was a side issue for him, an economic necessity.
His technique fascinates me. He starts out by cleaning the manhole cover,
otherwise it won’t work he says and adds: ‘This is my gift to the city.’
When the manhole cover is clean enough, Alex places paper on top of it
and rubs pencil across the paper until the lid’s detail is visible.
This often happens on roads where cars, bikes and scooters travel,
so that Alex has to frequently stop his work to make way for vehicles.
Alex crafts his art at risk to his own life while managing to avoid hurting himself.
It is astounding to see how many different manhole covers there are to be found in one city.
There is no such thing as a set standard.
In the book, a unique exemplar that he gave me at the museum on Friday the 25th of May,
is an index of manhole covers that Alex has immortalised.
He started out on the 8th of January 2008 at 1.10 pm and ended,
in this edition of the book at least, on 26th of October 2017 at 1.43 pm in Valencia.
Alex rates Brazilian and Japanese manhole covers as his favourites,
although practical reasons likely underlie that rationale as well (e.g. invitations).
I cannot look at Fisher’s work without being reminded of the film The Third Man by Carol Reed,
in which a sewage tunnel and consequently a manhole cover played a major role.
In post-war Vienna the underground sewage system was the hiding place
of one of the film’s main characters. The manhole cover was the door to that double life.
All around the world Alex Fischer cleans the doors to our double lives
and uncovers these doors to the world to us.
Alex Fischer remains the soul of discretion.
He allows us to see the door, we must do the rest ourselves.
Arnon Grunberg