‘My Name is Janez Janša’: The Curious Reiteration of the Slovenian Prime Minister

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In 2007 three artists based in Slovenia – Davide Grassi, Emil Hrvatin, and Žiga Kariž – legally changed their names to that of the then-prime minister, Janez Janša. Janša became prime minister again in early 2020 and is one of a growing number of European right-wing populist leaders, an authoritarian ethno-nationalist, closely associated with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Like Orbán, in 2020 Janša began replacing the directors of left-leaning Slovenian cultural institutions, including art galleries and museums, with more ideologically aligned individuals. Unlike other right-wing populist leaders, however, Janša has been subjected to an involuntary, and highly peculiar, interaction with these three Slovenian artists over the last fifteen years because of their name changes. While the artists claim that they changed their names for ‘personal reasons’, the reception of this work has assumed that this action has an explicitly political meaning, due to the direct reference to the politician. Close scrutiny of this project reveals that its function may in fact be simultaneously to invite and frustrate questions about artistic intention and meaning, and the relation between art and politics.