Aleksandra Mir presents Trump, the tabloid creation pre-2000

The artist Aleksandra Mir gives her own incisive take on fake news in an exhibition opening at the Hayward Gallery, London, next month (The Pre-Presidential Library, Heni Project Space, 9 January-9 February). Mir displays for the first time a selection from her collection of NYC tabloid covers compiled during research into the news media archives of the New York Public Library, covering the 15-year period between 1986 and 2000. Crucially, each of these 32 covers, photocopied from microfiche and enlarged to almost two metres high, all relate to aspects of Donald Trump’s life and work (a headline from 1999 reflects Trump’s intention to run as Presidential candidate for—wait for it— the Democrats). The project raises questions about building a brand (and how we can make it up as we go along basically). How we digested news pre-internet also springs to mind. Mir says in a statement: “The startling correlation between the past, present and future is not something I as an artist could ever create or predict. But as global events unfold, it is valuable to being these blueprints to light.” Which prompts the question: what’s so fake about fake news anyway?