Due to their aerodynamically curved shapes, their high-gloss coating and the female figure only clothed in stockings printed on the bottom half, the three elements of Trauerarbeit 2 seem to be bodywork parts of a car.
However, this interpretation has to take a back seat when we see the position of the female figure covering her face with her arm. What could be interpreted as a coquettish gesture within painting on car bodywork instead becomes a lamenting gesture when combined with the title “Trauerarbeit”. And this gesture can in turn be treated as reference to the carrier materials, which, in this case, are the upper parts of disused street lanterns from the former no man’s land at the Berlin Wall on Bernauer Strasse. Hemmert’s objets trouvés can thus be understood as detective work that preserves everyday objects that are disappearing and, in this case, are still historically loaded.