Your weekly president

Your Weekly President is a contemplative reflection on 8 years in office of the first black president of the United States. Every week since the day Barack Obama was elected president, he sat down to speak directly to the American people in a weekly video address.

Video still from Your Weekly President

"With each new image, the face is presented in a slightly different setting, which during the course of the film freezes more and more into a two-dimensional mask. The stack of images piles up, the visibility of each new picture is coupled with the concealment of the one that went before; in spite of this, a monotony of representation is created, which is linked to the gravity centre of Obama’s face."

– Katja Müller-Helle on Your Weekly President in the publication This is Willem Popelier, C/O Berlin, 2012.

✽
Winner
C/O Berlin Talents

2012

✽
Nomination
Prix Pictet

2012

Obama’s appearance in the videos was very carefully constructed by his office. At the same time strange details can be seen, when you take a closer look. For instance a complete building in the background seems to disappear a week later.

Willem Popelier collected all 427 speeches, chose one still from every one of them, and printed that still. The resulting print was then precisely placed on top of the prints from previous weeks. The installation Your Weekly President shows this proces and invites you to scroll through all weekly speeches and to focus on all the visual details. The work emphasises the carefully constructed reality surrounding Obama, the repetition of his face, the passing of time and the visualisation of power.

The complete installation exists of the video in an interactive installation, including a selection of printed stills, and printed and filed transcripts of all speeches.