Monika Sosnowska: Ghosts

Three delicate figures float above the pond at Callenberg. Their bodies consist of twisted, powder-coated reinforcing steel, which rises from the surface of the water like a hastily sketched drawing and seems to lift a veil-like gauze illuminated from below. The sculptures ‘Ghosts’ by Polish artist Monika Sosnowska (born 1972, Ryki, Poland) create a sense of transience that contrasts with the heaviness of the material. From the diffuse depths of the pond, thoughts or memories manifest themselves as subtle, seemingly dancing figures that symbolise both familiarity and transience. Sosnowska's ‘Ghosts’ blur the line between invention and reality. Technical materials borrowed from architecture and vehicle construction, such as steel reinforcement or epoxy resin-reinforced fibreglass, are transformed into fragile-looking constructions. They raise questions about the legacy of modernism and its promises, about permanence and its failure – and about what remains of it in our present day.

On the one hand, the work evokes the mining of rare minerals such as crocoite, nickel and red lead, which were extracted at Callenberg until 1990, and on the other hand, it also evokes industrial hosiery factories, whose tradition is now only continued by a few small businesses.  

(Text: Alexander Ochs / Ulrike Pennewitz)