Political Advertisement X: 1952-2020
Co-presented by the J. Paul Getty Museum and Minnesota Street Project
October 23 – 27, 2020
For 35 years, artists Antoni Muntadas and Marshall Reese have collected presidential campaign television ads. And every election year, they release their updated anthology. Played in chronological order and without commentary, the ads become a chorus of the nation’s patriotism, partisanship, and fear.
Their latest iteration, Political Advertisement X: 1952-2020 (80 min.) makes its North American debut on October 23-27, 2020, available as a limited-run online screening event. On October 26, Antoni Muntadas and Marshall Reese will be in a virtual live conversation moderated by Tanya Zimbardo, assistant curator of media arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
About Political Advertisement X 1952-2020
This year marks Muntadas and Marshall Reese tenth edition of Political Advertisement. They began the work in 1984, collecting campaign ads from incumbent President Ronald Reagan and Democrat former Vice President Walter Mondale. Today, the film spans the 1950s all the way to the 2020 election.
Surveying the American campaign process from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Donald J. Trump, Muntadas and Reese trace the history of ads as political strategy and marketing technique. They write, “Democracy is under threat on multiple levels today – from dark money donations that push for interests favoring the wealthy and corporations; from technologies of persuasion, Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube that have overtaken and reshaped the media landscape; to the even more mortal danger in 2020 that is the Coronavirus.”
October 26 Conversation Attendees
Antoni Muntadas
Political Advertisement X Artist
Antoni Muntadas was born in Barcelona in 1942 and has lived in New York since 1971. His work addresses social, political, and communications issues; the relationship between public and private space within social frameworks; as well as channels of information and the ways they may be used to censor central information or promulgate ideas. He works on projects in a variety of mediums including photography, video, and multimedia installations. Since 1995, Muntadas has grouped together a set of works and projects titled On Translation, emphasizing issues of interpretation, transcription, and cultural translation. Their content, dimensions, and materials are variable, and focus on the author’s personal experience and artistic activity in numerous countries. His most recent projects are Asian Protocols — exploring similarities, differences, and conflicts between Korea, Japan, and China—and a new series The Construction of Fear.
Marshall Reese
Political Advertisement X Artist
Marshall Reese is a Brooklyn-based artist working in various media including video, digital, custom hardware and software, and temporary public art events. Since the mid-eighties he has collaborated with Nora Ligorano as LigoranoReese. Their work is an ongoing investigation into the impact of technology on society and the rhetoric of politics and visual culture in the media. LigoranoReese have presented seven site-specific public works at the U.S. political conventions, focusing on climate and political issues.
In June 2020, they launched their most ambitious public art work yet The School of Good Citizenship in Charlotte, North Carolina, coinciding with the Republican Convention. The project included over 200 artists, photographers, singers, poets, and filmmakers. Reese partnered with Minnesota Street Project Adjacent and other institutions to stream the program live.
Tanya Zimbardo
Curator & Conversation Moderator
Tanya Zimbardo is a San Francisco-based curator. Her current exhibition Future Histories: Theaster Gates and Cauleen Smith (October 17, 2020 – May 23, 2021) is on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). As an assistant curator of media arts at SFMOMA, Zimbardo has curated several exhibitions including solo presentations of work by Jim Campbell, Runa Islam, Pat O’Neill, Nam June Paik, and Kerry Tribe; she co-curated the group surveys Nothing Stable under Heaven and Soundtracks. Zimbardo has guest (co)curated exhibitions, screenings, and public programs for nonprofit arts organizations including di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, Mills College Art Museum, San Francisco Cinematheque, and The 500 Capp Street Foundation. She has co-edited SFMOMA catalogues and contributed to publications such as VoCA Journal and INCITE: Journal for Experimental Media.
