A little stone statue has become an unlikety media star across Germany with a book and dozens of TV appearances to its name. Holbein the pony was created in 1936 by sculptor Werner Gürtner. Four years later it was put up in a suburb of Freiburg called Holbein. In the early eighties the statue was subjected to its first anonymous cosmetic treatment, though with only modest artistic pretensions. Now hardly a mounth goes by without the stone horse receiving a new outfit, thanks to the efforts of unknown sprayers and graffiti artists. The results are frequently inspired by topical themes. "Shell to hell" appeared at the time of the Brent Spar controversy; "Non Chirac" signalted indignation at the nuclear tests on the Mururua atoll; and in early summer the horse featured an ozone warning. 
The approach of summer 1995 found Holbein kitted out for the sea, in a blue and white striped one-piece bathing costume, cumplete with red-lacquered hooves and sunhat. In June 1995 Holbein vanished beneath a swathe of canvas simulating Christo's packaging of the Reichstag in Berlin. Christmas was heralded with a red-bouted and white-whiskered Father Christmas.

When Germany won Euro 96, the kurse assumed the unmistakahle features of footballer Christian Ziege complete with his three-day-unshaven look. With the help of daisies or beribboned Easter eggs, even engagements and wedding days are immortalised by an appropriate message. Occasionally the sculpture becomes an unofficial advertising hoarding for curporations such as Coca-Cola, Milka chocolate and Nivea. 
Accumulated layers of spray paint have actually prolonged the horse's life - normal weathering would have caused as demise years ago. Artists who wield their brushes on the horse stick to certain unwritten rules: a large portion of humour and a certain amount of artistic talent is required, and the transformations only take place under cover of darkness. 
And, most important of all, the identity of the artists is kept a close secret.

from The European Magazine, November 1997

More about the Holbein Little Horse on it's Homepage: Holbein Pferd

 

The Tram, Line 4 to Guernterstal, is espescially for Willy Kaemena ;-)