America’s Presidents Temporary Installation

We are excited to announce that the temporary installation will include “Hindsight is Always 20/20” by contemporary artist Luke DuBois. DuBois has generated “word clouds” with words and phrases from the state of the union addresses of 41 presidents. He then presents them in order of most frequent to least frequent word in the form of an eye chart for each president. The result is a startlingly clear snapshot of the lexicon of each presidency, containing a mix of key words and rhetoric unique to each president and the time period in which they served. The words amplify the story that we tell about the presidents by highlighting how the issues of the day became part of Americans’ political dialogue and vocabulary. The installation will allow us to marry words with images in a way that is both educational and aesthetically appealing.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.