SOLID GHOSTS
September 4, 2026 – October 17, 2026
Sophie Constanze Polheim, Harriet Rabe von Froreich
DER MIXER
SOLID GHOSTS explores the fragile boundary between the virtual and the real world—that threshold where physicality seems to become irrelevant, yet continually reasserts its place. The exhibition brings together two artistic approaches that address the body, technology, and embodiment in very different ways.
Sophie Constanze Pohlheim’s works are created, among other things, from burned-out car parts—metal resembling armor, deformed structures that serve as testimonies to heat, destruction, and speed. The artist combines these fragments with structures made of horsehair, which appear to be tools for both touch and injury. Pohlheim anchors her installations in Greek mythology: The fire that has scarred her materials alludes to Prometheus, the bringer of the flame, who gifted humanity with technology—and was himself condemned to eternal suffering as a result.
The works oscillate between technological progress and physical injury. Car accidents—as modern rituals of failure, traces of technoid hubris—here evoke the visual language of sadomasochistic practices: pain, discipline, and the transgression of boundaries. Pohlheim’s objects possess a massive physical presence; they are both memorials and metaphors—relics of a world in which technology not only serves, but also marks, shapes, and injures.
In contrast, Harriet Rabe von Froreich’s works explore the intersection of digital interaction, ritual, and human care. Her piece “Tarotbot,” created during the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, is based on an exchange via Instagram: People sent her messages, and the artist drew a tarot card for them. She then reconstructed this card using everyday objects from her home—thus embodying the card in physical space. She subsequently formulated a personal, intuitively guided interpretation as a small piece of life advice.
Her second work, “Sisybot,” alludes to the myth of Sisyphus: A program running on an antiquated computer generates endless combinations of letters and numbers to form potential email addresses and send messages to them—an absurd, mechanical struggle to make contact. Both works clearly demonstrate how von Froreich intertwines digital practices with human needs for meaning, communication, and physical contact, transforming them into performative, body-oriented forms.