As early as 1996, in the ‘Portrait of A. Roland Holst’, certain elements of my interests were already present which would emerge in later work: for instance, the use of objects trouvé besides the use of bronze is used to discover the character of the person in the portrait. We reach the character of the person by responding to the objects used. The word ‘portrait’ can also include unusual methods such as the use of media in the form of television reports and musical portraits.

The use of the spoken word in ‘Portrait of A. Roland Holst’ shows a first attempt to communicate information not only visually but also together with sound.


The A. Roland Holst Fund commissioned this medal. Every three years, this Fund awards a cash prize and a medal to a poet or a visual artist. This medal was awarded to the poets C.O. Jellema and Willem van Toorn and the sculptor Sigurdur Gudmundsson.

The recorder plays a sentence spoken by A. Roland Holst himself taken from a VPRO radio interview he gave in the 1970s. The text is from his poem ‘Even Sneeuw’ and reads: ‘It snowed until it snowed no more.’ He commented in the interview that he found this sentence his most beautiful lines of poetry.


Material: Bronze, glass bottle, shells, seawater, voice recorder.

Size: 8 x 2,5 cm

Issue: 5 (of which 3 had been commissioned by the A. Roland Holst Fund)

The Geldmuseum, Utrecht acquired one example, and another has been acquired by The British Museum, London.

Date:1996

 

ADRIAAN ROLAND HOLST

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65sCQa4Juvo