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DARE is the long lost, founding nonprofit entity that The McKinney Avenue Contemporary (The MAC) grew out of, after the big blue building on McKinney's businessman owner Claude Albritton, former DMA Director Richard Brettell and unnamed others wrested its precious nonprofit status from DARE co-founder Greg Metz in a long series of withering meetings.

DARE (Dallas Artists Research & Exhibition) was created in 1989 to exhibit Dallas artists and Dallas art. Now, The MAC is voting to rid itself of that nasty old reminder that it should serve unknown and underappreciated Dallas artists.

They're changing the name, claiming somebody else is using it. Pittiful excuse. We knew about the anti-drug folks ever since DARE co-founder Tracy Hicks originally came up with the daring acronym when we were still calling us YUNAG (Yet Unnamed Art Group). Maybe what was never really DARE anyway, should change their name instead to "The Contemporary."*

Meanwhile, so what? The MAC long ago abandoned any notions of exhibiting unknown Dallas artists, relying instead on a steady diet of BTAGFOOT — Big Time Art Guys From Out Of Town and local artists who have made it big somewhere else — something the original DARE board (I know; I was the founding DARE Board Secretary and PR Guy.) would find abhorrent.

The MAC long ago got all it wanted from DARE — its official nonprofit status. I can only guess they believe they wouldn't be eligible for their own nonprofit status. As it is and has been for nearly a decade, the only real remnant of the original DARE is the name in small print on The MAC's front door

Maybe now some burgeoning Dallas art organization could use the name DARE, and mean it.

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