Nina Katchadourian doesn’t consider herself a political artist, despite what her work might suggest.
Katchadourian, 56, is behind Monument to the Unelected, an ongoing, traveling art exhibit that enshrines losers of every presidential election in U.S. history, going back almost 240 years.
The artist designs her own political yard signs featuring failed campaigns of the past —from President John Adams’ reelection bid in 1800, when he lost to his rival Thomas Jefferson, to Mitt Romney‘s losing 2012 campaign. She then installs them in various public forums, often in the yard of a private home, during election years.
“I wanted there to be also a way for this piece to wind up in public so that you think you know what you’re seeing but you’d have to do a total double take because something would not add up,” Katchadourian told Newsweek in an interview.
“It’s a curiously apolitical piece because it does not have or exhibit any sort of opinion …