T.H.: Language is often a means of power; poetry might be seen as a possible, yet quite fragile counter-dispositive. This might be true for the power and meaning of images as well. The representation of money is often constructed in a numerical and analytical way, for example by statistics. The other way for you to represent money is by showing fragile pictures of the usura through pictures of the past.

P.N.: You are absolutely right. But I never intended to photograph money. Cannot be done. Photograph gold bars? A bank safe’s steel door? Stupid images! I «photographed» events that were motivated by money and became major universal crimes. But the system is very perverse here. My reputation as a photographer has always been that of somebody who is sticking the knife where it hurts. It starts with myself and then obviously the others have to taste the knife too. Now a bank asks me to show in their space. It’s a provocation. By doing so, they are also saying «we are not afraid of you; we are actually so open-minded, that we can take it. You are no longer dangerous». We know that the system has a very perverse way to always recuperate from the people that are angry at the world. But I am still angry at the world... No matter what!

T.H.: I think at this point any critical political efficiency in society is very hard to reach, but within an intellectual and artistic field it can still be very influential and in time will attract increasing attention. That’s actually what I meant when I compared Pound himself, a historical figure with a very dark site in his own life, with Pasolini’s subversive reading of both Pound’s poetry and biography in the late 60s.

P.N.: Pasolini’s interview with Pound is great and also important, because it was politically incorrect to talk about Pound, as it was incorrect to talk about Céline. I think that today there should be no time for intellectual guilt. For me the only thing that really matters, is that Pound was true to Pound. I like people who are true to themselves. Truth was always my question: How to be true to myself? How to deal with the world outside? I mean we are sitting here, it’s raining outside, we are quite comfortable, but there are people out there shivering, they have no money and food, and it’s miserable. Every time I get my camera and look at this people, I ask myself: What do I do? Do I ignore them? Do I photograph them? My photography has always come from the streets, never from the studio or from a concept.

T.H.: In 1994 you went to Auschwitz. In a conversation with Óscar Faria you said that from this point on your attitude changed and your photography «carried another weight». [2] I wonder how this changed your attitude towards the streets, with regard to what you said before, because it seems to me, that your later work had then another way of dealing with historical consciousness.