Rehabilitation of Ancestors

Rehabilitation of Ancestors is an artist's book based on the media research of Vienna-based artist Yoshinori Niwa. In recent years, Niwa has tried to diversify his approach by using different media forms, from direct interventions in the space, such as performances and happenings, to public campaigns using traditional media. For example, in the work "Dragging Adolf Hitler out of Private Space" (2018), he dared to place an advertisement in a daily newspaper, which is now considered as an old media, and planned to contact the elderly generation in order to get to know their ancestors who lived during the Nazi regime, which casts a dark shadow over Austria. Web works such as "Having a Birthday Party for Someone" (2019), a week-long random viewing of more than 600 videos of private birthday parties uploaded to YouTube but left unseen by most people, are an example of how people socialise in the age of social media. (2019), which was inspired by the way people socialize in the age of social media. In this age of high performance visual media, which are now easily accessible to everyone, the artist is determined to grasp a new image of humanity and to move society forward in the face of these changing roles.

The book includes a separate volume entitled "Following Red People in Vienna". By creating a fictional diary in the form of following red-dressed people in Vienna, the capital of Austria, where Yoshinori Niwa lives and works, he has been able to document the history of the Austrian Social Democratic Party (SDP), which was the ruling party in the city council of Vienna from 1918 to 1934, and to improve the living standards of the working people, and to create a new society. By creating a fictional diary in the form of the "Red Vienna" (Rotes Wien), the Austrian Social Democrats, who were the ruling party in Vienna's city council from 1918 to 1934 and who implemented outstanding policies such as the improvement of the living standards of the workers, public housing, welfare and medical services, intend to decipher in their own way the period of socialist rule and the present.

Planning: Yoshinori Niwa
Editing: Mika Maruyama
Text by: Beatrice Forchini, Curatorial Assistant, Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation for Contemporary Art (TBA21), Jeremy Epstein, Gallerist, Eder Asanti, Takahiro Okuwaki, Curator, Aomori Museum of Art, Sebastian Cichocki, Chief Curator, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw Chief Curator, Museum of Modern Art), Ana Maria Montenegro Jaramio) (Artist, Curator of the 45th Salon Nacional de Artistas)