Richard Kraft: It Is What It Is: All the Cards Issued to Donald Trump, January 2017-January 2021

A daily reckoning, a refusal of normalcy and a bulwark against forgetting: Richard Kraft’s epic visual and notational account of Trump’s four years in office

When Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017, New York-based artist Richard Kraft felt the necessity, like many others, of keeping a close watch on his presidency. Every day, Kraft scoured the news and Trump’s Twitter feed, assigning, like a referee in a soccer match, colored cards associated with transgressing rules and codes of conduct. Published in an edition of 650 copies, this five-volume set presents over 10,000 cards for Trump’s words and actions. In soccer, yellow signifies a warning. Red is for those offenses for which a player should be dismissed. Soon after the inauguration, Kraft began adding more colors for other infractions. When asked about COVID-19’s death toll by journalist Jonathan Swan, Trump replied, It is what it is. This project takes its title from that callous dismissal. A brute confrontation with the facts of Trump’s presidency, it is also a durational work of art, marrying futility with vigilance, transforming toxicity into beauty.