Merzmensch -washing time

From the series: NeoreAIlism
Paper: Hahnemühle Fine Art Archival Print
Sheet size: 40 × 40 cm with 1 cm white border around the motif.
Year: Edition of 2025
Edition: 3 + 1 AP
Signed, dated and edition numbered by the artist on a separate label.

Merzmensch – Washing-up time

In a narrow aisle between a wall newspaper and a shelf, an old man sits, reading, alert, like a librarian of the world. Around him: stacks of plates, scattered books, enigmatic photographs. The space is narrow, but full of traces—of lives, stories, routines. And somewhere in between: the dishes.

"Abwaschzeit" (Washing Time) is one of those works in which Merzmensch plays with the vocabulary of realism without trusting it. Everything seems documentary: the light, the bodies, the mouths that don't open. Yet nothing is real. The composition is too precise, the symbolism too dense.

What is being "washed" here? The dishes or the memories? Is this an archive or a place of purification? A remnant of human activity or a ritual no one understands anymore?

Merzmensch turns the act of reading itself into a washing-up: a silent gesture of appropriation of the world, of inner order. The men in the background are also reading, but in isolation – as if knowledge were no longer something that unites, but divides.

The space, as narrow as it is, seems infinite in its meaning: an alley between past and present, between reproduction and knowledge.

A work for collectors interested in the inconspicuous transitions – where thought and everyday life intertwine.