Exhibition opening: Neigh Neigh

Exhibition dates: 22 May–26 June 2026

Opening: Friday, 22 May 2026, 8.00 pm

Speaker: Prof. Ingo Vetter, University of the Arts Bremen

The exhibition features works on the theme of horses by three former master’s students of Prof. Ingo Vetter at the University of the Arts Bremen. 

Why horses? Because in art, they are never simply animals. Horses almost always appear as an extension of humanity: as a symbol of status, power or freedom, but equally as a canvas for intimacy, romance and longing. Hardly any other motif is so heavily charged and yet so contradictory. It is precisely this ambivalence that makes it difficult today to depict horses without context.

The exhibition brings together three artistic approaches that engage with the image of the horse from different perspectives – not as a representation of nature, but as a cultural construct, a gesture, a relic or a transitional figure.

Ruth Lübke (Master’s student 2022–2023) explores the horse as a symbol and image-bearer in her drawings. Her large-format works depict horses in the company of police officers – figures who are themselves highly coded. The focus is on the moment when roles shift and power gives way to care. Here, the horse appears not as a classic symbol of control or strength, but as a sensitive counterpart. “I am interested in how little it takes for a powerful image to change direction – and suddenly soften.” 

Minjeong Park (Master’s student 2024–2025) approaches the horse from a biographical and physical perspective. Her large-scale hand sculptures, created with a 3D pen using modern filament, capture the gesture of a galloping horse. They evoke a child’s game, born of a time of material scarcity when the horse existed only as an image. “My hands became horses,” says Park, describing this moment where fantasy, desire and movement merge. The sculptures are complemented by everyday materials such as instant noodles and tins, which allude to the living conditions of these memories. 

Martin Reichmann (Master's student 2021–2022) turns his gaze to the present – and beyond. He understands the horse as a pop-cultural phenomenon and a fleeting trend: as a meme, a lifestyle and a projection screen. “Horses are everywhere right now,” he writes. His works ask what remains once this hype is over. With motifs such as the saddle or the equestrian statue without a horse, he focuses on the void – on the moment after the horse.

Together, the three positions explore the horse as an image caught between power and play, closeness and control, trend and exhaustion. The exhibition does not ask what a horse is, but why it keeps reappearing – and how this image can be shifted. 

“Neigh” is the English onomatopoeic word for a horse’s whinny. When doubled, it sounds almost childish or trivialising. It is precisely this shift that interests the three artists. In the exhibition, a highly charged animal encounters equally strongly coded figures and images – such as the policeman as a symbol of order and authority (Ruth Lübke). The moment policemen tend to their horses, calming or stroking them, something shifts: it is not the horse that becomes cute, but the role of the policeman.

This absurd, almost intimate situation – a policeman speaking affectionately to his “Neigh Neigh” – connects with Minjeong Park’s playful approach to the image of the horse and Martin Reichmann’s reference to pop-cultural exaggeration and trends. The title describes this quiet, strangely comical moment of shift.