Bad Presidents Make Good Art

Richard Aldrich, Mark Flood, Jayson Musson, David Ostrowski, Jonas Wood, Matt Asti, Joe Kay, Ryan Lauderdale, Brian Degraw, Zach Reini, Alan Yuch, Lizzi Bougatsos, Sally Webster, There There, Peter Coffin, Sam Hillmer

“Bad presidents make good art.”

-Don De Vore, Sick Feeling

D & F presents Bad Presidents Make Good Art, an exploration of the legacy of experimental galleries, artist-run spaces and DIY venues that often gained primacy during phases of political unrest. During these times, it has been these alternative venues which have often superseded the discernment of critics, institutions, and universities, factors whose validation typically gives rise to artistic success. This elusive underground historically manifests in the form of certain haunts and dimly lit watering holes that serve as incubation chambers for creative movements. Beginning as far back as Duchamp’s Societe Anonyme, many of these are well documented and mythologized; the Abstract Expressionist’s Cedar Tavern, the poet’s White Horse Tavern.

Bad Presidents Make Good Art seeks to begin the documentation of newer venues that have emerged both within New York City and spaces conceived in other urban areas including Space 1026 in Philadelphia and Rhinoceropolis in Denver, which arose alongside and as a reaction to nearby art schools, proving to be breeding grounds for many of contemporary art’s most prolific contributors. These nuclei of creative innovation invite inquiry as to the circumstances, relationships, and hierarchies of artist collectives and artist-run spaces, asking whether perhaps it is this cooperative mindset that has allowed these communities to flourish and eventually, if reluctantly, to penetrate the mainstream.

The spaces explored in this exhibition are yet to be added to the historical canon but have already transitioned into online communities, which function similarly although not identically to their brick-and-mortar counterparts. Bad Presidents Make Good Art acknowledges the impenetrable nature of these collectives and venues, where artists are inducted and initiated into the history of art as the real anointment, while art galleries and institutions more and more serve as mere harbors for the artifacts of these transient hotbeds of expression.