Obama's People
January 23 - March 14 2010
One year after Barack Obama's inauguration in the White House in January 2009, Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, presents a unique insight into the staff surrounding the most powerful man in the world.
Shortly before the Inauguration, British photographer Nadav Kander (b. 1961) made a series of portraits of 53 people appointed by the President to trusted positions – from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to young spin doctor Jon Favreau, cowboy hat-clad Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Obama's relaxed personal assistant Reggie Love and Republican Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
Kander's series puts faces to this newly-defined machinery of power which previously remained anonymous; but the diversity at play in terms of age, sex and ethnic backgrounds is also an obvious element in the Obama administration's way of presenting itself with a more directly human appeal. The series is a period picture of the optimism emanating from the new staff - but Kander's photographs at the same time lay themselves open to the spectator's own impressions and interpretations of the people portrayed here.
Kander's method has been to capture Obama's people at the very moment at which they do not consciously pose in front of the camera. By isolating the individual persons up against a white backdrop, Kander emphasizes details in their facial expressions, body language or dress that speak for themselves.
All the participants were given the opportunity to bring with them to the photo shoot a personal item which might give a clue to their personality - an iPod, a basketball, a book, a cookie, a cowboy hat.
The photographs were originally commissioned by The New York Times Magazine for a special issue to be published two days before Obama's inauguration. The series is partly inspired by "The Family", Richard Avedon's legendary 1976 portraits of the US power elite for Rolling Stone Magazine.
Nadav Kander was born in Israel, grew up in South Africa and today lives in London.