“Surface Treatments – 150 Jahre Zeit” digs deep beneath the surface of the history of the Villa Merkel building: exhibition walls that were subsequently installed are torn down, making door frames and windows visible again, and over 40 doors stored in the cellar are reinstalled. The metaphorical deep drilling brings to light buried knowledge and archive objects such as historical knee-high socks made of Esslingen wool, analogue and digitalised film material and photographic reproductions that visitors encounter in the exhibition.