This montage of advertising spots from US presidential campaigns between 1956 and 1988 examines the media, the evolution of images and political discourse. Antoni Muntadas' art is a system of representation of reality that focuses on the concept of the “media landscape”, mainly targeting television, manipulations of information, the appearance of invisible mechanisms produced by mass communication services in contemporary society.
This position denounces the false subjectivity of these images, defining the vast problematic resulting from the deluge of information that assails us, that we believe we can grasp, choose, and modify, and yet we are subjected to. Here, the political argument is shown as one more product of mass consumption.
From Dwight Eisenhower to Ronald Reagan, Muntadas enables us to observe (without any form of commentary) the radical modifications that occur depending on the period, in terms of the sets and the candidate's discourse, the vacuity of the messages, clichés and feel-good statements, dressed up with increasingly sophisticated special effects. The work is an inventory that should help citizens to become more aware and active as spectators and voters.

Stéphanie Moisdon
Translated by Anna Knight