Dr. Jutta Moster-Hoos
Horst-Janssen-Museum Oldenburg
Janssen really an artist who did his own thing, and rarely fit in with trends or groups.
There’s no one like him in the second half of the twentieth century.
Tete Böttger
collector
He was a force of nature …
a reverse volcano, so to speak, who didn’t spew,
but dragged one into the abyss. Into the abyss of insight.
By comparison, Beuys is utterly harmless.
Maya Picasso
Janssen fan
J’aime Janssen.
I love Janssen.
Verena Janssen
3rd wife, 1960 – 1968
…in October (1960) I was 21.
And I said to my mother, “I’m going to marry Janssen.”
That was, of course, a shock.
To start with.
But then I said,
“Listen, you don’t need to make a fuss if you don’t want to.
I’ll do it anyway.
I’m 21. That’s my plan, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
Gerhard Schröder
Chancellor of Germany, 1998 – 2005
I have occasionally visited his exhibitions.
I even spoke at one…..
…where I also indicated what
fascinates me about his art.
Nao Sakamoto
paper merchant
でもヤンセンが俺はgreat fuckって言うから、
Maybe, Paper Fuck なんだよ俺は。それだけ。
But Janssen tells me I am a “great paper fuck” so Maybe
I am a “great paper fuck”. That is all.
Henning Voscherau
First Mayor of Hamburg, 1988 – 1997
Then I visited him in Blankenese
– in this atelier-living-freezing-den-o’-thieves…
It was very late at night, and lasted until 4 the next morning.
(Janssen sat at) … a huge work table with ashtray, cigarette,
coffee cup with ashes put into it, soap cleanser as artistic material,
a mountain of paper and – fireworks.
And I always thought, for God’s sake,
the man is drunk, he’s smoking,
there are fireworks, and maybe 500 of his works.
If he torches everything here at night,
then he’ll immediately do the same to the whole house –
and himself with it. Good heavens.
Isabella von Bethmann-Hollweg
Classmate art school „Lerchenfeld“
One day he said, we’re now going to make a film.
It turned out that it wasn’t so easy,
because we had no cameras and no equipment…
Then he said, well, we’ll then just perform a theater production.
A note was again attached at the bottom of the stairs that read:
Theatrical performance in the Mahlau class.
Title of the performance: The Birth of Art
Hans Ulrich Klose
First Mayor of Hamburg, 1974 -1981
Usually he would draw a little bit on the side…
…sometimes we even drew together,
but mostly we talked about the state of the world.
Manfred Bissinger
Collector
He had a lovely nickname for me, specifically
“My morning roll.”
Miyoko Aoto
Publisher „Connaissance des Arts“, Tokyo
でもヤンセンさんはそこのなかで葛飾北斎と言う人を自分の父と、敬愛して、学用老人ですか？ ご自分をそうやって業したっと聞いているけれども、本当にヤンセンさんの生涯よりももっと長い、寿命を全うした北斎さんですけれども。たぶん、自分の口から言うのは幅ったいかもしれないけれども、とてもエネルギッシュに絵に対してだけはとても純粋だったんだろうですね。
But Janssen has treated Katsushika Hokusai as his own father,
with love and respect, and study him very well.
Hokusai lived a lot longer than Janssen
but I think he was a very energetic and very pure person.
I think there are possibly 3,000 drawings.
Perhaps 10,000 etchings-
or graphics as a whole, with woodcuts and lithographs.
And there are books.
Thus, “St. Gertrude,” we have made about 200 books.
But then there are perhaps at least 300 or 350 different titles,
or something like that.
It is certainly a comprehensive, remarkable work.
Lamme Janssen
Daughter
It was difficult for my father to make plans well into the future.
I learned that later, too. Even 24 hours was too much.
He liked to make plans in the morning for the afternoon. That was fine.
But it was very difficult for him over night.
Boris Brockstedt
Gallery owner
Galerie Brockstedt
http://www.brockstedt.com
… still in Scandinavia.
Japan. Of course, the Japanese love Janssen.
The French value him highly.
The country where he is underrepresented is America.
No question.
And that will be my job, to continue this legacy, my father’s legacy,
to secure Janssen his place in America as well.