Robyn Rodrigue--Gallery Visit
Robyn Rodrigue
Hindsight is Always 20/20
Weisman Art Museum
Hindsight is Always 20/20 is an exhibit portraying the work of R. Luke DuBois. His artwork consists of a poster for each of the 41 presidents that have given a State of the Union Address. From the addresses given to congress, DuBois has extracted the sixty-six most common words used throughout the speech. The list of sixty-six words is then displayed on a white poster with bold black letters similar to eye exam charts; larger letters on top going down to smaller on the bottom. The prints are installed in the order of presidency, from Washington to Bush with gray arrows marking the path.
DuBois was inspired to do this project after visiting the University of California Santa Barbara, where he worked with the American Presidency Project. This project consists of an online database that has organized presidential addresses into a searchable database. From this database a list is produced, as noted above about the sixty-six most common words throughout the address.
All the materials in each piece was the same, it was the words that were different. I found the project as a whole very interesting. If someone knows a little bit about history you can sense what was most important to Americans in a given era. A recent example is the prevalence of the war on terror, and that is the first bold lettering that one see when looking at the piece of George W. Bush’s Union Address. Each time I looked at a new poster, my eye was automatically drawn to that big, bold lettering at the top and to read it any other way I found to be uncomfortable and unnatural.
On the information sheet for Hindsight is Always 20/20, it states that the point of the project was to give the viewer a chance to reflect on “…politics, the presidency, and the ways in which we a a people disseminate and process information.� I found the last part about information very interesting because I naturally look for patterns and make lists and try to find connections between things, so for me this exhibit made me think about the way I process things.
I would recommend this exhibit to anyone who is interested in the process of breaking down speech, and if they are interested in seeing the progression of issues from one era to another.