In Development

Yoshinori Niwa’s (b. 1982, Aichi Prefecture, Japan) practice takes the form of social interventions realised through performance, video and installation. His works all bear self-explanatory, slogan-like titles, and are executed primarily on the street and in public spaces, experimenting with actions and propositions exposing the systems of exchange that drive contemporary society. Yoshinori Niwa’s work involves seemingly absurd and unproductive physical acts, as illustrated such as in Transforming Puddle A to Puddle B, 2004.

In recent years Yoshinori Niwa has taken an interest in the history of communism, moving on to projects that explore the nature of national history. Recent projects include Looking for Vladimir Lenin at Moscow Apartments, 2012, in which Niwa searches the homes of ordinary Russian families for images of Lenin years after the demise of the Soviet Union. His latest project, Selling The Right to Name a Pile of Garbage, 2014, sees Yoshinori Niwa examining the concept of property rights over garbage and land in Manila, Philippines, by colligating the naming rights of businesses and dumpsites. The large-scale recent work Withdrawing Adolf Hitler from a Private Space, 2018, he installed a big cloth collecting container and offer to shred unwanted Nazi relics at their home. The project reflects how people handle relics connected to political upheaval or ideology, how they pass them to a new generation.

Yoshinori Niwa graduated from Tama Art University’s Department of Moving Images and Performing Arts in 2005. Yoshinori Niwa’s work has been exhibited internationally; recent group exhibitions include Double Vision: Contemporary Art From Japan, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Haifa Museum of Art (2012); Aichi Triennale 2013, Aichi Arts Center (2013); Roppongi Crossing 2013: OUT OF DOUBT, Mori Art Museum (2013), Historically Historic Historical History of Communism, Edel Assanti (2015), OUR BELOVED WORLD, Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art (2015), MAM screen Yoshinori Niwa Selected video works, Mori Art Museum (2016), steirischerherbst’18 (2018), IME FOR OUTRAGE! ART IN TIMES OF SOCIAL ANGER, Museum Kunstpalast (2020) and his work is included in international collections including the KADIST Foundation, Paris/San Francisco, Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Wroclaw, Mori Art Museum and Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo.