Yoshinori Niwa
Cleaning a Poster During the Election Period Until It Is No Longer Legible (2024)
Photo: Yoshinori Niwa
Twenty twenty-four is a year of decisive elections all over the world. Not only the presidential elections in the US but also a host of parliamentary elections in Europe are slated for this autumn, and everywhere, including in Austria, the Right is on the rise. Yoshinori Niwa responds to this super election year with a project in public space—at present saturated by posters with portraits and slogans. Meant to be memorable, they all wind up looking more or less the same.
Niwa infiltrates this rigid system with a sense of absurdity and a directness typical of his works in public space. His poster shows a politician combining many gloriously dubious qualities found on the patriotic spectrum, with a slogan to match. It reads “Jedem das Unsere” (to each our own), a pun on the ancient motto “Jedem das Seine” (to each his own), which the Nazis notably placed above the entrance to the Buchenwald concentration camp. The poster is slowly washed off during the festival, disappearing completely on the day of Austria’s national elections.
Yoshinori Niwa (1982, Aichi Prefecture, Japan) is an artist who realizes social interventions—mainly in public spaces—through performance, video, and installation. His works all bear self-explanatory, slogan-like titles and have recently been shown, among other places, at: Setouchi Triennale 2016, Naoshima; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2017), steirischer herbst ’18; Wrocław Contemporary Museum (2018); Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf (2020); Match Gallery, Ljubljana (2021); 10th Bucharest Biennale (2022); and the 8th Yokohama Triennale (2024). Niwa lives in Vienna.
Commissioned and produced by steirischer herbst ’24
14.9.–29.9., durational performance
14.9.–13.10., installation
29.9., 16:30, final washing
Kapistran-Pieller-Platz
8010 Graz
Freely accessible
Design: Yelena Maksutay
Commissioned and produced by steirischer herbst ’24