Paint by Numbers

Comments (0) By Carlos Suarez De Jesus Thursday, Dec 29 2011

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The Wolfsonian-FIU

1001 Washington Ave.
Miami Beach, FL 33139

Category: Galleries

Region: South Beach

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Long before the media and the Internet were used by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann to inform public opinion, propagandists relied on old-fangled, Kafkaesque data-slinging to stack the cards in favor of their arguments. Surreptitious name-calling might still be fashionable for, say, Michele Bachmann, but back when subliminal messaging was still a pipe dream, the way for folks of this ilk to fashion lopsided, dangerously deceptive information was to employ statistics. After all, most bullies have always relied on strength in numbers — and numbers, they found, could be used to cow the uneducated. "Statistically Speaking: The Graphic Experience of Data," on view at the Wolfsonian-FIU (1001 Washington Ave., Miami Beach), offers a compelling look at how early spin doctors cooked statistics in their favor as powerful tools of mass persuasion. In the museum's rare book and special collections library, you will find eye-catching statistical graphics and charts from the first half of the 20th Century, revealing the ambitions of forces behind everyone from Soviet propagandists to Portuguese imperialists to American New Dealers. Each of these groups deployed graphic design to make information vivid and understandable and to inflate it with meaning beyond the numbers themselves. At the Wolf, you can get lost in the details of arcane messaging without the threat of Newt Gingrich's tweeting.
Jan. 3-24, 12-6 p.m., 2012