Never Again Peace
Graz 8010
Austria
The contemporary arts festival steirischer herbst, based in Graz and Styria, Austria, is pleased to announce the publication of the catalogue of its fifty-eighth edition, Never Again Peace, as well as that of the accompanying reader.
The festival’s title referred to a disintegrating postwar order that held up the ideal of peace and the slogan “never again”—now misused by reactionary forces to whitewash today’s crimes with past victories over fascism. It also alluded to Ernst Toller’s prophetic satire Nie wieder Friede (1936). steirischer herbst ’25 confronted the rise (and return) of authoritarianism and the never-ending wars in the world. Recalling its antifascist roots, the festival invited artists to respond to a present in which the lessons of World War II appear to have been forgotten, if not perverted.
“steirischer herbst ’25 operated at this inflection point […] It asked what it means to be truly against war and against fascism when both concepts have been so thoroughly emptied of content and mobilized by those who embody the very threats they purport to oppose.”
—Ekaterina Degot and David Riff, introduction to the catalogue
The richly illustrated catalogue showcases the central exhibition in a labyrinthine abandoned distillery in Graz. It also documents the other projects of Never Again Peace, including performances and cabaret shows.
Short texts by the curators are accompanied by essays by Veronika Schuchter, Miklavž Komelj, Çağla Demirel and A. Dirk Moses, Natascha Strobl, and Ilija Trojanow.
Published in parallel, the reader focuses on one of the festival’s projects, Six Characters of Hotel W. This curatorial intervention stepped back to revisit the time in which the currently crumbling world order seemingly emerged: the aftermath of World War II. Six writers were commissioned to create a diverse cast of characters orbiting one of the Graz grand hotels in the autumn of 1945, which the curators translated into installations. Six Characters of Hotel W.: A Case Study from Never Again Peace presents these texts next to essays exploring their relation to reality and how the memory of World War II is used today.
The reader contains contributions by Siegfried Beer, Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus, Marianne Hirsch, Herwig G. Höller, Erich Klein, Miklavž Komelj, Heribert Macher-Kroisenbrunner, Elena Messner and Goran Lazičić, Madame Nielsen, Peter Ruggenthaler, Maria Stepanova, and Ilija Trojanow.
Both publications were designed by the Ljubljana-based collective Grupa Ee (Mina Fina, Damjan Ilić, and Ivian Kan Mujezinović) and are published by Hatje Cantz.
steirischer herbst ’25 was curated by Ekaterina Degot, David Riff, Gábor Thury, and Pieternel Vermoortel.
Ekaterina Degot and David Riff (eds.). Never Again Peace. Hatje Cantz, 2026. ISBN 978-3-7757-6311-0. 272 pp. 109 ill. 23 × 30 cm. Softcover. 50 EUR.
Ekaterina Degot and David Riff (eds.). Six Characters of Hotel W.: A Case Study from Never Again Peace. Hatje Cantz, 2026. ISBN 978-3-7757-6346-2. 208 pp. 12 ill. 11.80 × 21.90 cm. Softcover. 25 EUR.
Both books are now available wherever books are sold and can also be ordered via our web shop.
