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New Washbasin Pictures

The German-Italian journalist Sandra Farinelli in conversation with Michael Host on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition "Some new pictures of my washbasin"

Sandra Farinelli: Welcome to Art-Forum 72. Thank you for taking the time for this interview. We are in the main room of your new exhibition and in the background one of these oversized pictures. I think it's the largest print here in the installation, two meters eighty by three meters ninety, if I've seen it correctly on the small information board next to the picture. So my first question is quite simple: Is size an issue for you?

Michael Holst: Well, it's about spaces and when you do an exhibition, it's about impact. And the images you hang have to fit in, in terms of their size, to the room and to the people who see them. That's always very important to me, the question of where someone is standing when they look at a picture. What is it like when you enter a room, what is it like when you walk through the room. Even if it's an exhibition where there are 'only' pictures hanging on the wall or in the room, that's an important question. It's actually just like an installation, when you stage an experience with objects in the room. It's the same with the presentation of photography. And of course it's great, especially with photography, that you can simply make prints, or inkprints, that's what they are here, especially the large inkprints, in practically any size and on many different materials. And then I can also offer a visitor this huge picture in a dimension that fits in their home or office. I also do office furnishings or reception halls for companies, and the requirements for the format are simply very different, without any judgment, simply functional. It has to fit. And yes, that's why size is important, but size doesn't just mean huge, it means the right size, the right size for the room, and these are very large rooms, so the prints have tobe very large.

Sandra Farinelli: And then the washbasin. All images are pictures of a washbasin. My thought was, after a few minutes actually, everything yet was not fully set up, but all the pictures were already hanging, and I went there alone, and still without the comments that are now next to the pictures on the wall or on a stand, and then my question was: What kind of washbasin is that? Nowadays, people always ask whether the pictures are real photographs or generated by AI and you have also just completed a project in which you, together with this Japanese programmer ...

Michael Holst: ... yes, with Aiko Ito ...

Sandra Farinelli: ... yes exactly, this project with the images generated by computer processes.

Michael Holst: You mean "the invisible".

Sandra Farinelli: Yes. And there's just really this question: What kind of washbasin is that? Is that a real washbasin, one that you use to shave in the morning, for example? I have the impression that you are very well shaved today. You usually wear a beard.

Michael Holst: Thank you (smiles).

Sandra Farinelli: So this washbasin really exists. Is it in your home? Or did you find it at a landfill site? Or ...

Michael Holst: ... So with the landfill, that surprises me now, and at home, that's something that's important to me, to protect the private sphere. Although I am always very personal in my installations and actions, but not private.

Sandra Farinelli: But by placing the possessive pronoun in the title you suggest that. Don't you?

Michael Holst: Well, yes, of course. But at the same time, it's my decision not to say any more than the images show, or perhaps more precisely, not to say anything at all about this and such questions and to let the images speak for themselves. And if you engage with these images, and also with the title and the texts here in the exhibition, then it can have a good effect and is perhaps also an answer to your question. And yes, of course it's my washbasin. I am the owner. We always have a lawyer on the team for the big projects. That's important and the lawyers always make a difference between possessor and owner. - that's what I have learned already. - As I said, the owner is me. The possessor is my landlord. I rented the studio. And that's why I can't sell this washbasin, it's that simple.

Sandra Farinelli: Could you have sold it? Were there any people interested?

Michael Holst: Funnily enough, yes. You could dismantle it, of course. But that's not legally possible, of course. I would have to ask the landlord, the owner (laughs). So it's the washbasin in the studio in Cologne. The studio that Marcellus found forme, and there's a washbasin from the 1970s, in the small separate room, and I saw it and then it was an object, and actually only rarely used, but with a development. And that's actually all I can say about it. It's about time, about traces of time, that's one of the themes in there.

Sandra Farinelli: I read that you said that these images are anti-war images. What do you mean by that?

Michael Holst: I think that's from an interview, the quote you have in mind, from an interview with one of the two big Frankfurt newspapers. I think you read this quote there. They exaggerated it a bit, or pointedly, you could say. It happens sometimes with journalists who want to get to the heart of the matter. So literally, so directly, one-to-one, that's not my wording. Although in terms of content, if you understand it correctly, it is of course completely accurate.

Sandra Farinelli: You'll have to explain that, I think.

Michael Holst: Well, I said that these images and this exhibition are a statement against war in a very fundamental way. They are against the making and planning and justifying and preparing for war and also a pointed statement against the way in which all the crimes and horrible terriblenesses that are committed in war are later dealt with, and which are the essence of war.

Sandra Farinelli: How do you make the connection? Your images - images of a washbasin - and war?

Michael Holst: It's a Beuys theme, of course, this thing with the washbasin. That was already the case in the first project, in the 72 pictures, also in the subtitle. And here it's taken up again, very topically. It's a theme, war, 'again', you could say. Here in Europe, the 'again' is correct. Globally, there have always been wars, large and small, and most of them have been forgotten by the global public. Yes, and the way we talk and think about it today, now, here, is, I think, frightening. And that somehow contrasts quite painfully with the way we have talked about dealing with the war or trying to deal with it here in Europe, especially in Germany of course. I always have this 'never again' in my ear. And I think that was meant very seriously. But suddenly, all of a sudden, it faded away, faded into the empty space of a universe that has been given different coordinates, in which people measure with different units of length, very disruptive. And this attempt to protect a society, a continent, perhaps even the world, from people beating each other up again in masses, injuring each other, throwing explosives and highly accelerated sharp-edged metal objects at each other, this attempt, as serious as it was, is a failure, it must be said, even at the very first exposure. (takes a breath) We are preparing for war again, waging it. And the "we" here is meant in a very broad sense: we humans. Yet we were so shocked after all the atrocities and crimes, after two world wars. And war is always a crime and it also leads to the innocent, the victims, getting into situations where they think - I say this without any judgment, I don't know whether this is right or wrong from a moral point of view - that they, practically everyone, thinks they have to do something that they would normally consider ethically forbidden. These are really fundamental questions. And of course the people who, for whatever reason, have a tendency towards crime, violence, robbery and murder, live it out. But the others, who are actually okay, are also drawn into it. That's one of the phenomena that can be observed. And that naturally raises the question of why this is happening and, above all, how we can prevent it from happening again in the future.

Sandra Farinelli: And that brings you to Beuys, to Joseph Beuys?

Michael Holst: Yes. Or rather to the effect that Beuys had on me as an artist growing up. So even though I deal with Beuys' work and make it the subject of my works, I'm not a Beuys specialist. I am an artist, not an art historian. I can't say anything about the significance of Beuys, the historical, the art-historical assessment. I can only say what effect he, his work and the way his work was and is dealt with had on me. In the public debate, it's ebbing away, it's almost completely disappeared, it's museum-like, of course, in the sense that museums preserve it, but it's also disappearing. But when I started making art - well, I was never a student of Beuys, just to avoid any misunderstanding, that was once written in an article about me, so no, not a student, I just lived in the...