Donald Moffett: IMPEACH: Brooklyn Museum

Donald Moffett's solo exhibition, IMPEACH at the Brooklyn Museum, NY. 

The institution's press release follows:

Step onto the floor of the US House of Representatives in December 1998. As the chamber debates whether to impeach President Bill Clinton, Representative John Lewis delivers a deeply personal speech about surviving a devastating storm—and about holding a divided nation together. His passionate testimony became a rallying cry to stay united as a national family, weathering the storm that Clinton’s trial represented as a divisive partisan issue for the American people.

In IMPEACH, artist Donald Moffett (American, born 1955) turns that moment into an immersive sound installation, inviting listeners to hear Lewis’s words and their echoes anew. Removing the speech from its original context, Moffett allows us to focus on the details of the congressman’s story, the echoes of applause, and the sound of the gavel as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee attempts to silence him. Along with imagining how Lewis’s speech landed almost 30 years ago, IMPEACH is an opportunity to consider its meaning on the United States’ 250th anniversary, a time again marked by both hostility and hope.