Disconstructing Trump!

April 2016, I watched Chris Matthews, of MSNBC, interview Donald Trump. During the interview, I observed, for what I think was the first time during this campaign, Trump seemingly off balance, and not full of his usual confidence and narcissistic bravado. Considering his normal unflappable nature, this seemed odd, and so I decided that I needed to capture this somehow.

I began to photograph the TV screen with my iPhone and using the high-speed, (multi-shot function), I took about 300 photos in less than 10 minutes. With those images I began to build collages that, to me, capture Trump’s multiple personalities. In these works, I believe, his true conflicted and disturbing nature begins to be revealed. At once contradictory, creepy, binary, multi-layered and unsettling, I’ve only started to reveal the real persona. Dismantling, cutting, disassembling, rearranging then reassembling this imagery is the essence of Disconstructing Trump!

Note: I spent most of May 2016 at the American Academy in Rome as a visiting artist. I arrived there with these many hundreds of color printouts of Trump that would eventually become this series. Having limited resources at the Academy, I did what came most naturally - I began cutting and collaging together these many disparate versions. Due to the simplicity of my studio there and lack of tools, I worked primarily from instinct, which lead to this unique solution. Then, once back to New York, we photographed the works and then printed a handful of them extra large which to me, perfectly reflects Trump’s oversized ego and Trumped up personality.

Rodney Durso 2016