Good Trouble: Artists Respond to the 2022 Presidential Election
Curated by Raul Zamudio & Juan Puntes
*Artits: Alan Carrasco, Aldo Tambellini, Angel Vergara, Anita Glesta
Anonymous, Avelino Sala, Barbara Alper, Blanka Amezkua, Bradley McCallum, Brian Bellott, Cecilia Jurado Chueca, Charlee Swanson
Chin Chih Yang, Christine Davis, Claudia Baez, Colette Lumiere
Despo Magoni, Dominga Valles, Duke Riley,Ebenezer Singh, Emma McCagg
Enrique Jezik, Eugenio Merino & INDECLINE, Ferran Martin, Firoz Mahmud, Franz Vila, gua_s, Ivan Navarro & Courtney Smith, Jacobo Borges, Jean Pierre Muller, Jeanette Doyle, Jeffrey Hargrave, Jeffrey Perkins, Jelena Tomasevic, Jim Costanzo, Joan Logue, Joanne Ross
Joaquin Segura, Joel Diaz/Jolibe, John Monteith, Jose Luis Ortiz Tellez, Julia San Martin, Marjiana Pende, Martin Durazo & Kristin Bauer, Mary Mattingly, Masaaki Noda, Miguel Rodriguez Sepulveda
Ned & Shiva Productions, Noritoshi Hirakawa, Oscar Oiwa, Ouma
Pablo Helguera, Pasha Radeski, Pedro Sanchez III Rirkrit Tiravanija 7 Tomas Vu, Robert Boyd, Roberto Visani, Roland Gebhardt, Rosebud Ebenezer, Ruben Verdu, Sachigusa Yasuda, Sarah Maple, Sari Tervaniemi
Stefano Cagol, Susanna Sully, Tania Candiani, Terry Berkowitz, Teresa Margolles, The Renowned Annoying Nun, Tiim, Joseph Ayers + Aya Uekawa, Tom Fruin, Tomoni Shintaku, Victor Sheely, Whitner FaGo
William Anastasi, Xu Bing, Yohanna Roa*
Oct 10 – Nov 11, 2020 | Open Public Installation
Oct 17 & Oct 25 | Receptions
Nov 3, @6pm – Midnight | Presidential Election Night Performances
Of the many things that Senator John Lewis has been noted for besides his heroic and often dangerous struggle for racial equality, was his strategy of non-violent disobedience that he poetically coined as “good trouble.” The full passage of which his clarion call appears is in a 2018 tweet: "Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble." As the 2020 Presidential Election approaches, it is now more than ever to engage in good trouble whether this be in the streets, the workplace, the classroom, or the exhibition space.
Artists have a history of expressing variants of Lewis’ sociopolitical resistance through their art when confronted by injustice. Some early instances include Ben Shahn’s Sacco and Vanzetti (), and Jacob Lawrence’s Struggle: From the History of the American People from the first half of the twentieth century, and since then with a whole slew of artists not only working singularly but also in collectives. And is in this spirit that Good Trouble: Artists Respond to the 2020 Presidential Election dovetails on, as it is more than an exhibition but akin to a mobilization towards the most important election in recent US history and attendant ramifications both within the US and abroad.
President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement exacerbating climate change, the building of a wall along the US/Mexico border, the violent response to migrants along the aforementioned divide, and Trump’s xenophobia and islamophobia are just a few of many examples of the far reaching consequences of current administrative policies that need to be stopped, for the sake of the planet, on November 3, 2020.
Because of the repercussions of erroneous and dangerous domestic and foreign decisions by the current government, Good Trouble: Artists Respond to the 2020 Presidential Election demands it be an international exhibition. It is also an assemblage, a convocation, or campaign that will launch artistic salvos against those who seek to oppress the common good. Analogous to the exhibition’s formal heterogeneity is the individuated subject matter that rubs up against all forms of social inequality, police brutality, nationalism, environmental destruction and so forth. The exhibition’s curatorial structure entails to mirror the intensification of the national political landscape by incrementally installing artworks leading up to the 2020 Presidential in which the evening will culminate with performances as well as podcasts from artists in Washington DC engaging in guerrilla journalism as art. All artists: we call out to you to be the vanguard in this decisive historical moment where we take our lives back for the sake of ourselves and our future, on November 3, 2020.