Serial & Multiple Images: Nixon

“People have limited memory. The images were made to fix the period. To fix the trauma that the troops were experiencing and to fix the trauma that people were experiencing at home. They were intended to … fix the transient.” —Donald Blumberg

Donald Blumberg began photographing television broadcasts in 1968 as the United States underwent serious political upheaval. This photograph was made in 1969 as a direct political critique of Richard Nixon, who became president that year and escalated the American involvement in the deeply unpopular Vietnam War.

The small, curved, square shapes and static blur visible in Blumberg’s photographs are a result of the size, shape, and low quality of black-and-white TV broadcasts at the time.