A Collectography of PAD/D Political Art Documentation and Distribution: A 1980s Activist Art and Networking Collective

This history of Political Art Documentation and Distribution (PAD/D) was written by Gregory Sholette, one of its young members, in order to provide an “archive” of its activities from inside the collective. His experience with PAD/D led Sholette to argue that in the activist art and counter-public sphere there is the necessity for a “dark matter” archive, primarily an open access digital platform, of unknown or unrepresented practices of the art world. In his Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture (Pluto Press, London, 2011), Sholette refers to the mass of hidden producers “invisible primarily to those who lay claim to the management and interpretation of culture — the critics, art historians, collectors, dealers, museums, curators, and arts administrators”. These views are indebted to activist collectives and manifestations in the 1960s and 1970s such as Artists and Writers Protest (AWP), Angry Arts, the Guerrilla Art Action Group (GAAG), and the Art Workers’ Coalition (AWC). They are also informed by the legacies of feminist organisations, ranging from Women Artists in Revolution (W.A.R.) to the Heresies Collective, and the marginalisation of black artists that led to the formation of groups such as Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation (WSABAL).

* This 2022 updated iteration of the text appears in The Routledge Companion to Art  and Activism in the Twenty-First Century. Edited by Lesley E. Shipley and Mey-Yen Moriuchi, (New York: Routledge, 2022).