Sheida Soleimani’s Levers of Power catches politicians in the very act. Her newest series examines a fundamental, if overlooked, element of the political: gesture. For Soleimani, bodily comportment opens up a gap between what politicians say and what they do. This attention opens a window into the political unconscious—into the way that the present imposes itself on a body. At the same time, her photographs reveal how politicians have trained their bodies to set media machines into spin cycles as endless means of distraction. Soleimani’s headless leaders freeze fingers in the act of pointing, an ekphrasis that invites viewers to pause and meditate on these acts of blame shifting, the very embodiments of power, corruption, and lies. The source imagery used as backdrops tell a radically different story, commanding us to link the crisis and devastation to the microlevel of the political gesture. As Lauren Berlant might have written, in these photographs the aesthetic rendition of affective experience provides evidence of historical processes.