Richard Kraft

Read Leah Ollman’s review in the Brooklyn Rail here.

From the publishers description:

On inauguration day January 20, 2017, artist Richard Kraft began issuing Donald Trump penalty cards, just as a soccer referee wields a yellow as a caution and a red for dismissal. For four years, Kraft scoured the news and Trump’s Twitter feed every day, notating and assigning each of Trump’s offenses a colored card (at first yellow and red, then Kraft devised magenta, purple, and crimson as the offenses became more egregious). Through January 20, 2021, when Trump presidency came to an end, Kraft recorded almost 10,000 offenses, each assigned a card and annotated in the corresponding color.

In this set of five artist’s books, totaling over 1600 pages, the ever-mutating, accumulating grids of colored cards reveal the frequency, chronology, and intensity of Trump’s transgressions. In their beauty and abstraction, they evoke musical notation, abstract painting, the processing of digital information, or geologic strata. Conversely, the textual annotations, totaling over 500,000 words, written as neutrally as possible, precisely describe each violation. The annotations become a shocking chronicle, a kind of day-to-day — sometimes minute-by-minute — account that leaves no doubt about the intentions of this president from his first day in office through January 6, 2020.

This project is many things—a marriage of outrage with absurdity, of vigilance with futility; a durational work of art and work of great endurance; an experiment to turn toxicity into beauty; a daily reckoning and a bulwark against forgetting. "It Is What It Is" originates in the artist’s refusal—to normalize the Trump presidency, to become complacent or inured, to never turn away from the ugliness. Now, two years later with elections looming, "It Is What It Is" is something else as well: a cautionary tale of epic proportions.

Read Leah Ollman’s review in the Brooklyn Rail here.

From the publishers description:

On inauguration day January 20, 2017, artist Richard Kraft began issuing Donald Trump penalty cards, just as a soccer referee wields a yellow as a caution and a red for dismissal. For four years, Kraft scoured the news and Trump’s Twitter feed every day, notating and assigning each of Trump’s offenses a colored card (at first yellow and red, then Kraft devised magenta, purple, and crimson as the offenses became more egregious). Through January 20, 2021, when Trump presidency came to an end, Kraft recorded almost 10,000 offenses, each assigned a card and annotated in the corresponding color.

In this set of five artist’s books, totaling over 1600 pages, the ever-mutating, accumulating grids of colored cards reveal the frequency, chronology, and intensity of Trump’s transgressions. In their beauty and abstraction, they evoke musical notation, abstract painting, the processing of digital information, or geologic strata. Conversely, the textual annotations, totaling over 500,000 words, written as neutrally as possible, precisely describe each violation. The annotations become a shocking chronicle, a kind of day-to-day — sometimes minute-by-minute — account that leaves no doubt about the intentions of this president from his first day in office through January 6, 2020.

This project is many things—a marriage of outrage with absurdity, of vigilance with futility; a durational work of art and work of great endurance; an experiment to turn toxicity into beauty; a daily reckoning and a bulwark against forgetting. "It Is What It Is" originates in the artist’s refusal—to normalize the Trump presidency, to become complacent or inured, to never turn away from the ugliness. Now, two years later with elections looming, "It Is What It Is" is something else as well: a cautionary tale of epic proportions.

Read Leah Ollman’s review in the Brooklyn Rail here.

From the publishers description:

On inauguration day January 20, 2017, artist Richard Kraft began issuing Donald Trump penalty cards, just as a soccer referee wields a yellow as a caution and a red for dismissal. For four years, Kraft scoured the news and Trump’s Twitter feed every day, notating and assigning each of Trump’s offenses a colored card (at first yellow and red, then Kraft devised magenta, purple, and crimson as the offenses became more egregious). Through January 20, 2021, when Trump presidency came to an end, Kraft recorded almost 10,000 offenses, each assigned a card and annotated in the corresponding color.

In this set of five artist’s books, totaling over 1600 pages, the ever-mutating, accumulating grids of colored cards reveal the frequency, chronology, and intensity of Trump’s transgressions. In their beauty and abstraction, they evoke musical notation, abstract painting, the processing of digital information, or geologic strata. Conversely, the textual annotations, totaling over 500,000 words, written as neutrally as possible, precisely describe each violation. The annotations become a shocking chronicle, a kind of day-to-day — sometimes minute-by-minute — account that leaves no doubt about the intentions of this president from his first day in office through January 6, 2020.

This project is many things—a marriage of outrage with absurdity, of vigilance with futility; a durational work of art and work of great endurance; an experiment to turn toxicity into beauty; a daily reckoning and a bulwark against forgetting. "It Is What It Is" originates in the artist’s refusal—to normalize the Trump presidency, to become complacent or inured, to never turn away from the ugliness. Now, two years later with elections looming, "It Is What It Is" is something else as well: a cautionary tale of epic proportions.

Read Leah Ollman’s review in the Brooklyn Rail here.

From the publishers description:

On inauguration day January 20, 2017, artist Richard Kraft began issuing Donald Trump penalty cards, just as a soccer referee wields a yellow as a caution and a red for dismissal. For four years, Kraft scoured the news and Trump’s Twitter feed every day, notating and assigning each of Trump’s offenses a colored card (at first yellow and red, then Kraft devised magenta, purple, and crimson as the offenses became more egregious). Through January 20, 2021, when Trump presidency came to an end, Kraft recorded almost 10,000 offenses, each assigned a card and annotated in the corresponding color.

In this set of five artist’s books, totaling over 1600 pages, the ever-mutating, accumulating grids of colored cards reveal the frequency, chronology, and intensity of Trump’s transgressions. In their beauty and abstraction, they evoke musical notation, abstract painting, the processing of digital information, or geologic strata. Conversely, the textual annotations, totaling over 500,000 words, written as neutrally as possible, precisely describe each violation. The annotations become a shocking chronicle, a kind of day-to-day — sometimes minute-by-minute — account that leaves no doubt about the intentions of this president from his first day in office through January 6, 2020.

This project is many things—a marriage of outrage with absurdity, of vigilance with futility; a durational work of art and work of great endurance; an experiment to turn toxicity into beauty; a daily reckoning and a bulwark against forgetting. "It Is What It Is" originates in the artist’s refusal—to normalize the Trump presidency, to become complacent or inured, to never turn away from the ugliness. Now, two years later with elections looming, "It Is What It Is" is something else as well: a cautionary tale of epic proportions.

Read Leah Ollman’s review in the Brooklyn Rail here.

From the publishers description:

On inauguration day January 20, 2017, artist Richard Kraft began issuing Donald Trump penalty cards, just as a soccer referee wields a yellow as a caution and a red for dismissal. For four years, Kraft scoured the news and Trump’s Twitter feed every day, notating and assigning each of Trump’s offenses a colored card (at first yellow and red, then Kraft devised magenta, purple, and crimson as the offenses became more egregious). Through January 20, 2021, when Trump presidency came to an end, Kraft recorded almost 10,000 offenses, each assigned a card and annotated in the corresponding color.

In this set of five artist’s books, totaling over 1600 pages, the ever-mutating, accumulating grids of colored cards reveal the frequency, chronology, and intensity of Trump’s transgressions. In their beauty and abstraction, they evoke musical notation, abstract painting, the processing of digital information, or geologic strata. Conversely, the textual annotations, totaling over 500,000 words, written as neutrally as possible, precisely describe each violation. The annotations become a shocking chronicle, a kind of day-to-day — sometimes minute-by-minute — account that leaves no doubt about the intentions of this president from his first day in office through January 6, 2020.

This project is many things—a marriage of outrage with absurdity, of vigilance with futility; a durational work of art and work of great endurance; an experiment to turn toxicity into beauty; a daily reckoning and a bulwark against forgetting. "It Is What It Is" originates in the artist’s refusal—to normalize the Trump presidency, to become complacent or inured, to never turn away from the ugliness. Now, two years later with elections looming, "It Is What It Is" is something else as well: a cautionary tale of epic proportions.

Read Leah Ollman’s review in the Brooklyn Rail here.

From the publishers description:

On inauguration day January 20, 2017, artist Richard Kraft began issuing Donald Trump penalty cards, just as a soccer referee wields a yellow as a caution and a red for dismissal. For four years, Kraft scoured the news and Trump’s Twitter feed every day, notating and assigning each of Trump’s offenses a colored card (at first yellow and red, then Kraft devised magenta, purple, and crimson as the offenses became more egregious). Through January 20, 2021, when Trump presidency came to an end, Kraft recorded almost 10,000 offenses, each assigned a card and annotated in the corresponding color.

In this set of five artist’s books, totaling over 1600 pages, the ever-mutating, accumulating grids of colored cards reveal the frequency, chronology, and intensity of Trump’s transgressions. In their beauty and abstraction, they evoke musical notation, abstract painting, the processing of digital information, or geologic strata. Conversely, the textual annotations, totaling over 500,000 words, written as neutrally as possible, precisely describe each violation. The annotations become a shocking chronicle, a kind of day-to-day — sometimes minute-by-minute — account that leaves no doubt about the intentions of this president from his first day in office through January 6, 2020.

This project is many things—a marriage of outrage with absurdity, of vigilance with futility; a durational work of art and work of great endurance; an experiment to turn toxicity into beauty; a daily reckoning and a bulwark against forgetting. "It Is What It Is" originates in the artist’s refusal—to normalize the Trump presidency, to become complacent or inured, to never turn away from the ugliness. Now, two years later with elections looming, "It Is What It Is" is something else as well: a cautionary tale of epic proportions.

Read Leah Ollman’s review in the Brooklyn Rail here.

From the publishers description:

On inauguration day January 20, 2017, artist Richard Kraft began issuing Donald Trump penalty cards, just as a soccer referee wields a yellow as a caution and a red for dismissal. For four years, Kraft scoured the news and Trump’s Twitter feed every day, notating and assigning each of Trump’s offenses a colored card (at first yellow and red, then Kraft devised magenta, purple, and crimson as the offenses became more egregious). Through January 20, 2021, when Trump presidency came to an end, Kraft recorded almost 10,000 offenses, each assigned a card and annotated in the corresponding color.

In this set of five artist’s books, totaling over 1600 pages, the ever-mutating, accumulating grids of colored cards reveal the frequency, chronology, and intensity of Trump’s transgressions. In their beauty and abstraction, they evoke musical notation, abstract painting, the processing of digital information, or geologic strata. Conversely, the textual annotations, totaling over 500,000 words, written as neutrally as possible, precisely describe each violation. The annotations become a shocking chronicle, a kind of day-to-day — sometimes minute-by-minute — account that leaves no doubt about the intentions of this president from his first day in office through January 6, 2020.

This project is many things—a marriage of outrage with absurdity, of vigilance with futility; a durational work of art and work of great endurance; an experiment to turn toxicity into beauty; a daily reckoning and a bulwark against forgetting. "It Is What It Is" originates in the artist’s refusal—to normalize the Trump presidency, to become complacent or inured, to never turn away from the ugliness. Now, two years later with elections looming, "It Is What It Is" is something else as well: a cautionary tale of epic proportions.

Read Leah Ollman’s review in the Brooklyn Rail here.

From the publishers description:

On inauguration day January 20, 2017, artist Richard Kraft began issuing Donald Trump penalty cards, just as a soccer referee wields a yellow as a caution and a red for dismissal. For four years, Kraft scoured the news and Trump’s Twitter feed every day, notating and assigning each of Trump’s offenses a colored card (at first yellow and red, then Kraft devised magenta, purple, and crimson as the offenses became more egregious). Through January 20, 2021, when Trump presidency came to an end, Kraft recorded almost 10,000 offenses, each assigned a card and annotated in the corresponding color.

In this set of five artist’s books, totaling over 1600 pages, the ever-mutating, accumulating grids of colored cards reveal the frequency, chronology, and intensity of Trump’s transgressions. In their beauty and abstraction, they evoke musical notation, abstract painting, the processing of digital information, or geologic strata. Conversely, the textual annotations, totaling over 500,000 words, written as neutrally as possible, precisely describe each violation. The annotations become a shocking chronicle, a kind of day-to-day — sometimes minute-by-minute — account that leaves no doubt about the intentions of this president from his first day in office through January 6, 2020.

This project is many things—a marriage of outrage with absurdity, of vigilance with futility; a durational work of art and work of great endurance; an experiment to turn toxicity into beauty; a daily reckoning and a bulwark against forgetting. "It Is What It Is" originates in the artist’s refusal—to normalize the Trump presidency, to become complacent or inured, to never turn away from the ugliness. Now, two years later with elections looming, "It Is What It Is" is something else as well: a cautionary tale of epic proportions.

Read Leah Ollman’s review in the Brooklyn Rail here.

From the publishers description:

On inauguration day January 20, 2017, artist Richard Kraft began issuing Donald Trump penalty cards, just as a soccer referee wields a yellow as a caution and a red for dismissal. For four years, Kraft scoured the news and Trump’s Twitter feed every day, notating and assigning each of Trump’s offenses a colored card (at first yellow and red, then Kraft devised magenta, purple, and crimson as the offenses became more egregious). Through January 20, 2021, when Trump presidency came to an end, Kraft recorded almost 10,000 offenses, each assigned a card and annotated in the corresponding color.

In this set of five artist’s books, totaling over 1600 pages, the ever-mutating, accumulating grids of colored cards reveal the frequency, chronology, and intensity of Trump’s transgressions. In their beauty and abstraction, they evoke musical notation, abstract painting, the processing of digital information, or geologic strata. Conversely, the textual annotations, totaling over 500,000 words, written as neutrally as possible, precisely describe each violation. The annotations become a shocking chronicle, a kind of day-to-day — sometimes minute-by-minute — account that leaves no doubt about the intentions of this president from his first day in office through January 6, 2020.

This project is many things—a marriage of outrage with absurdity, of vigilance with futility; a durational work of art and work of great endurance; an experiment to turn toxicity into beauty; a daily reckoning and a bulwark against forgetting. "It Is What It Is" originates in the artist’s refusal—to normalize the Trump presidency, to become complacent or inured, to never turn away from the ugliness. Now, two years later with elections looming, "It Is What It Is" is something else as well: a cautionary tale of epic proportions.

Read Leah Ollman’s review in the Brooklyn Rail here.

From the publishers description:

On inauguration day January 20, 2017, artist Richard Kraft began issuing Donald Trump penalty cards, just as a soccer referee wields a yellow as a caution and a red for dismissal. For four years, Kraft scoured the news and Trump’s Twitter feed every day, notating and assigning each of Trump’s offenses a colored card (at first yellow and red, then Kraft devised magenta, purple, and crimson as the offenses became more egregious). Through January 20, 2021, when Trump presidency came to an end, Kraft recorded almost 10,000 offenses, each assigned a card and annotated in the corresponding color.

In this set of five artist’s books, totaling over 1600 pages, the ever-mutating, accumulating grids of colored cards reveal the frequency, chronology, and intensity of Trump’s transgressions. In their beauty and abstraction, they evoke musical notation, abstract painting, the processing of digital information, or geologic strata. Conversely, the textual annotations, totaling over 500,000 words, written as neutrally as possible, precisely describe each violation. The annotations become a shocking chronicle, a kind of day-to-day — sometimes minute-by-minute — account that leaves no doubt about the intentions of this president from his first day in office through January 6, 2020.

This project is many things—a marriage of outrage with absurdity, of vigilance with futility; a durational work of art and work of great endurance; an experiment to turn toxicity into beauty; a daily reckoning and a bulwark against forgetting. "It Is What It Is" originates in the artist’s refusal—to normalize the Trump presidency, to become complacent or inured, to never turn away from the ugliness. Now, two years later with elections looming, "It Is What It Is" is something else as well: a cautionary tale of epic proportions.

Pencil on paper

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.

It Is What It Is is a response to and a catalog of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is a daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy, a bulwark against forgetting, a work of art that creates an unrelenting record of Trump’s ignominious four years in office, while also transforming it—in the crucible of dark humor—into something quite beautiful.

The project’s second iteration is a set of daily drawings consisting of hand-painted cards mounted on board. Each drawing represents one day of Trump’s presidency and is accompanied by a print with annotations for each card.

In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for more serious offenses—ones for which a player should be dismissed. (The futility and absurdity of assigning these cards to Trump is part of the point—what power does a referee hold when norms, fairness, and justice have been eviscerated? And yet, the referee goes on . . .)

Quite soon after inauguration, more colors were added for a variety of infractions: magenta for especially egregious transgressions, orange for days Trump spent at his golf courses (there are over 300), pink for those who played golf with him (sycophants!), and dark blue when someone in the administration was fired or resigned ("fuck you as you go" cards). On April 23, 2020, when Trump suggested curing COVID by injecting bleach into the body, a purple card was added for the most shocking moments. In September 2020 when he repeatedly refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose his re-election bid, another level of card, crimson, became necessary. There are also, conversely, teal cards throughout honoring acts of resistance.

When asked about COVID’s staggering daily death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan in a September 3, 2020 interview, Trump replied: “It is what it is.” This project takes its title from that callous dismissal.

Each book—one for each year of the first three years Trump’s presidency and two for 2020—opens with that year’s cards then ends with a textual log of the transgressions to which each card is assigned (2020 is split into two volumes—one for cards and the other for texts). The texts are succinct and as neutral as possible (researched from sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Politifact, Govtrack.us and the New York Times). There are over 10,000 cards and more than 500,000 words. Together the books will exceed 1500 pages.

It Is What It Is asks readers to confront the erasure that results from the daily assault from the Trump administration: What do we remember? What have become inured to? What shocks us out of our complacency, our fatigue? How does memory shape our experience of what seemed impossible almost four years ago? The project is as much a confrontation with the facts and the phenomenon of a Trump presidency as it is a vast, informational graphic work, an artifact of the darkest days, and a durational work of art. It marries futility with vigilance, outrage with humor and beauty.

Further information can be found at Siglio Press.