Intro by Elsebeth Aasted Schanz, PhD, Manager and curator of the Danish Poster Museum, Aarhus Denmark:
The poster series “We are all equal”, with the subtitle “The Faces of Racism Revealed” consists of 100 posters (by august 2013). The artist who created the posters is Finn Nygaard and he completed first part of the series in 2012 with the support of working grants from the Danish Arts Foundation. More posters/motives have later been added to the posterseries.
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With just a few exceptions the series consists of portraits of well known figures some contemporary some historical and some fictitious. The posters are executed in clean bold colours with an expression reminiscent of the pop art tradition. A common feature in them all is the sculptural Homo rhodesiensis skull floating in outline in each portrait. This and the title bring to mind Charles Darwin and his theory of the Origin of Species. There are many facets to the graphic expression of the posters and the title “We are all equal” touching on political and religious angles and the scientific theory of evolution. There is stimulating food for thought and discussion and plenty to take a stand on. At the same time there is plenty of the ironic humour, which is a typical expression in Finn Nygaard’s posters. E.g. the poster he has made for the expression at the Poster Museum in Den Gamle By/The Old Town. This one shows the artist himself as a red profile, and behind it you can just see the big ears and round snout of Mickey Mouse.
.Thus Nygaard adds a fair portion of self irony to the gallery of characters on the other posters. Several of the portraits show another characteristic often seen in Finn Nygaard’s art posters: his ability to add movement to his pictures in a rhythmic dancing flow. You can feel the music clearly in his jazz posters.
.Because of its comprehensive scope and the unifying line and idea behind the posters the “We are all equal” series must be regarded as a major work in Finn Nygaard’s oeuvre of posters.
.Each poster can be produced by “print on demand” and thus it is possible to order copies of the posters by visiting Finn Nygaard’s website > FinnNygaard.dk