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This week on Bad at Sports, Duncan MacKenzie and Brian Andrews visit the studio of artist Delano Dunn, whose dazzling collages combine the visual excess of the 1980s and ’90s with the deeply uncomfortable histories embedded in American popular culture.
Dunn’s work is seductive by design. Glitter, holographic surfaces, bright colors, vintage advertisements, and fragments of historical imagery draw viewers into compositions that quickly reveal something considerably darker. Racist caricatures, political figures, and the visual machinery of American consumer culture collide in works that ask us to confront histories we might prefer to forget.
The conversation begins with collage and moves into an expansive discussion of race, memory, representation, and the complicated business of making images. Dunn takes aim at contemporary portraiture, arguing that too many portraits strip their subjects of contradiction, complexity, and humanity. His alternative? Find the dirt. Historical figures are more interesting when we acknowledge the things that make them difficult, compromised, and recognizably human.
Along the way, the conversation wanders through Steely Dan, Larry Rivers, Ronald Reagan, comic books, moviegoing, art history, hockey, the Chicago Bears, and the peculiar ways that sports culture might teach the art world something about developing an audience.
The discussion also takes us to Dunn’s exhibition *Echoes in the Margin* at Troutbeck in Amenia, New York. Curated by Mickalene Thomas and presented with the Wassaic Project, the exhibition brings together works addressing American history and race, including portraits of W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, and Ida B. Wells.
The location is particularly resonant: Troutbeck hosted important NAACP gatherings in 1916 and 1933. Dunn is interested not simply in celebrating historical figures but in recovering their contradictions, personalities, and humanity.
It’s an episode about the pleasure of looking, the danger of forgetting, and why a little glitter can make some very difficult conversations possible.
Names Dropped:
Delano Dunn — https://www.delanodunn.com/
Duncan MacKenzie — https://badatsports.com/ (program website)
Brian Andrews — https://badatsports.com/ (program website; individual turns not audio-verified)
Arturo Herrera — https://smartcollection.uchicago.edu/objects/973/untitled
Michael Ray Charles — https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/items/detail/interview-michael-ray-charles-24827
Larry Rivers — https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_66.4295
Napoleon Bonaparte — https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_66.4295 (relevant artwork)
Jacques-Louis David — https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_66.4295 (relevant artwork)
Ronald Reagan — https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/ronald-reagan/
- E. B. Du Bois — https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/naacp/founding-and-early-years.html
Langston Hughes — https://poets.org/poet/langston-hughes
Ida B. Wells — https://www.nps.gov/people/ida-b-wells.htm
Mickalene Thomas — https://www.wassaicproject.org/exhibitions/delano-dunn-echoes-in-the-margin
Eve Biddle — https://www.wassaicproject.org/ (organization only; exact role not independently verified)
Joel Spingarn — https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/naacp/founding-and-early-years.html
Clarence Thomas — https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx
Harlan Crow — https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-luxury-trips-harlan-crow-supreme-court
Joel Chandler Harris — https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/joel-chandler-harris-1848-1908/
Vincent Price — https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/7f444b7b-d778-5559-8222-15f9b485ac11/theatre-of-blood
Diana Rigg — https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/7f444b7b-d778-5559-8222-15f9b485ac11/theatre-of-blood
Shane Gillis — https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live (general program page, not verification of the specific monologue)
Echoes in the Margin — https://www.wassaicproject.org/exhibitions/delano-dunn-echoes-in-the-margin
Troutbeck — https://troutbeck.com/
Wassaic Project — https://www.wassaicproject.org/
Montague Contemporary — https://www.montaguecontemporary.com/exhibitions/63-echoes-in-the-margin-delano-dunn/overview/
School of the Art Institute of Chicago — https://www.saic.edu/profiles/faculty/delano-dunn
NAACP — https://naacp.org/
Amenia Conference (1916) — https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/naacp/founding-and-early-years.html
Second Amenia Conference (1933) — https://loc.gov/exhibits/naacp/the-great-depression.html
Art Review – https://artreview.com/
Vanity Fair — https://www.vanityfair.com/
Affordable Art Fair — https://affordableartfair.com/
Art Institute of Chicago — https://www.artic.edu/
Bad at Sports — https://badatsports.com/
Guggenheim Fellowships — https://www.gf.org/
WEB DuBois (Delano Dunn) — https://www.wassaicproject.org/exhibitions/delano-dunn-echoes-in-the-margin
The Greatest Homosexual, after “Napoleon in his Study” by David (Larry Rivers, 1964) — https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_66.4295
The Second Greatest Homosexual (Larry Rivers, 1965) — https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6161153
Uncle Remus stories — https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/joel-chandler-harris-1848-1908/
Steely Dan — https://steelydanofficial.com/
Absolute Batman — https://www.dc.com/
X-Men / Uncanny X-Men — https://www.marvel.com/comics
The Sandman — https://www.dc.com/
Commando — https://www.imdb.com/find/?q=Commando%201985
The Breakfast Club — https://www.imdb.com/find/?q=The%20Breakfast%20Club%201985
Menace II Society — https://www.imdb.com/find/?q=Menace%20II%20Society
Theatre of Blood (1973) — https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/7f444b7b-d778-5559-8222-15f9b485ac11/theatre-of-blood (corrects 1972)
Saturday Night Live — https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live
Chicago Bears — https://www.chicagobears.com/
Chicago Cubs — https://www.mlb.com/cubs
Chicago White Sox — https://www.mlb.com/whitesox
Chicago Blackhawks — https://www.nhl.com/blackhawks
Los Angeles riots — https://www.history.com/topics/1990s/los-angeles-riots
- Episode 978: Delano Dunn - October 30, 2026
- Episode 977: E. Saffronia Downing - October 21, 2026
- Episode 976: Tony Lewis and Bosco Bae - October 13, 2026
