STATEN ISLAND, NY – August 21, 2010: Tour Participants walk through brush to an undisclosed location. The Ghost Ships of the Kills tour, led by artist Marie Lorenz, took participants by bus to climb empty and never used natural gas tanks and decrepit boats next to the Fresh Kills, a stream and freshwater estuary, next to the Fresh Kills Landfill. During the summer months, artist-innovated mystery tours supported and curated by Flux Factory take participants to undisclosed locations – with each tour having a theme – around the five boroughs and beyond.

From Pauline Pechin’s blog.

July 16, 2010

Flux Factory’s “artist-led” urban exploration tours are back for its third edition.

For the past two years, I had the pleasure of attending excursions to castle ruins, iridescent quarries and an abandoned subway station in the Bronx. Which doesn’t summarize nearly half of the adventures that can span multiple boroughs in a day. Each tour’s theme is unique. Strangers board a school bus to secret destinations that are revealed only upon arrival. When people sign up for each tour, they receive an email only indicating what to bring and where to meet. The rest is mobile performance art.

This year’s first tour, “Rock the Block”, took place this past Saturday (July 10). The trip was hosted by Yoni Brook, Jason Eppink, Liz Barry and Bill Wetzel (with a few special guests). I received an email that said to meet at 8:15 am and to bring gloves. When I arrived on bicycle (slightly past the 8:15 mark) there was already a cluster of people waiting outside of Flux Factory, kindly handing over the waiver forms we were told to print and sign.

We boarded the school bus, a white and green metal monster powered by veggie oil, which included a curtained off  “bathroom” stall with a bucket (The bus looks like it’s leaking if you pee. Otherwise sprinkle sawdust.). In the back was a full-size bed space, ideal for group lounges; the downside is that your head is closer to the ceiling when the bus hits a pothole (ouch).

A campy sign above the driver read: “If you puke, poop or pee sing Happy Birthday.”

On the bus I met a few first timers like Candace Lunn, who said she had heard about the tours a few years ago but wasn’t able to get on the tours until this year. “Every time I wanted to go it was already full.”

After crossing the Verrazano Bridge and passing a 99-cent store, a Perkins’ Family Restaurant and Zion Lutheran Church, we were in Staten Island. On foot we approached a wooded area enclosed by a chain-link fence, which had a slit that we slipped through one-by-one. Down a sloping path of vines and poison ivy, the group arrived at a compound ruin known as the New York State Farm Colony, a government experiment which previously housed indigents in exchange for their labor. Across the street stood Seaview Hospital, one of the city’s first tuberculosis wards. Inside the Farm lay a landscape of empty windows, rubble and broken staircases. A dark-haired woman dressed in Victorian attire graciously recited a monologue as Alice Austen, the photographer who spent her last years at the colony after bankruptcy. The woman’s name was Yvonne Muro, a volunteer from the Alice Austen House. And the monologue was written by Lawrence F. Schwabacher.

After a friend and I made our way to the basement, where the sewer pipes (and perhaps asbestos) were located, it was time to get back on the bus. A few minutes down the road we are told that we would be entering a private residence. Located on a quaint block called Cottage Place, the house’s immaculate exterior showcases stain-glass windows and black trim. The residence is owned by the artist John Foxell, a simple, humble-hearted man approaching 70 who kindly recites an elegant poem to the entourage, entitled “Vespers”, which he had written the night before during a usual bout of insomnia.

He explains that the house’s colors are in the vein of Halloween. Inside were endless bookshelves alphabetized and all read by Foxell. Silver old timey dial phones were located in each corner of the house. Also throughout the house were absurdist but impeccable arrangements of cartoon figurines (One featured the Catholic church, an “abused” baby and superheroes), skulls and bones (“For company, especially those who are good listeners”), and Gothic ornamentation rooted in religious symbolism. On a wall hung a photograph of Foxell with President Truman, whom he had interviewed as a student at NYU. Foxell apparently knew Sarah Jane Moore, the woman who attempted to assassinate President Ford, and the man who grabbed her arm, Oliver Sipple. While speaking to Brook on the bus, he dubbed Foxell a modern-day “Forest Gump.” I agree.

It was time to leave Staten Island. We finally arrived at Barren Island (known by the Dutch as the “Island of Bears”) in Brooklyn, roughly 20 miles from the Empire State Building. The place is also known as Dead Horse Bay, where once stood a rendering plant that disposed of dead horses. The island became a “primitive” recycling ground. Although people had been dumping their garbage since the 1850s, the location became what The New York Times labeled as the “perfect landfill”, according to Brook, because so few New Yorkers knew about the place. There to guide us was historical digger Dan McGee of The Manhattan Well Diggers (special guest #1), who scavenges for artifacts from similar locations throughout the city. The terrain of the island resembled a porcelain and bottle cemetery with glass fragments dating to the ‘50s. McGee admitted that he uses metal detectors, which he says have helped friends find old coins worth $10,000. Further down the beach, we came across a  “Marry Me” sign in the sand, crafted out of bottles, beside a reply that read: “Ok.”

On the way to our next stop we got stranded in a rain storm; supposedly the bus’s windshield wipers were broken. A handful of people exited the bus in their briefs to play in the rain and suddenly took off running for the nearby field. Luckily I had packed a swimsuit. I stripped out of my dress and ran to meet the group. Together we all played intense variations of tag until the rain stopped nearly an hour later.

From the Island of the Bears we were finally off to the Island of Coney, where the group roamed the boardwalk on a series of scavenger hunts to locate objects like a feather, penny from 1950, and a condom. We also had to locate people from different countries. Before long, we were on the beach playing a fierce game of Tug and War (gloves included).

Suddenly, Howard Richman, a local square dance caller with us (special guest #2), grabbed a microphone. From atop a bench he began instructing the entourage on the art of line dancing, while blasting hillbilly tunes. As we sashayed and dosey-doed, people on the boardwalk seemed puzzled but interested. We later pulled a few strangers to participate.

After an intense square dancing session, we were told to form a crouched line on the beach for a (loose) game of leap frog toward the ocean. While people were walking, straddling their legs through the line, I heard someone yell, “That’s not how you play leap frog!”

It was finally time to dive into the lukewarm, gritty ocean waters for the finale to our glorious day.  A game of  Chicken ensued. And being the professional that I was, my petite frame went down instantly – to the detriment of my gracious partner.

But there’s always next time. With one tour down, there’s six more to go.

By Leigh Remizowski

Friday, June 18th 2010, 4:00 AM

If a summer excursion doesn’t seem complete without a dash of mystery and a dose of unpredictability, this Long Island City artists’ collective may have just the thing for you.

The Flux Factory’s “Going Places (Doing Stuff)” program provides adventurous New Yorkers a chance to visit little-known places in and around the city during seven weekend trips planned by local artists.

“The catch is, they don’t know where they’re going,” said Jean Barberis, the group’s artistic director. “It’s a leap of faith.”

During the past two summers, participants have piled onto a vegetable oil-fueled school bus and found themselves on unexpected exploits – such as entering a rock quarry in Massachusetts reachable only by zip-line, kayaking through marshes in New Jersey and swimming around the Bannerman Castle on Pollepel Island on the Hudson River.

Flux Factory’s curator Georgia Muenster said they like to “keep it as vague as possible” before participants pile onto the bus.

The titles of each trip in this year’s lineup will be released next week.

“The titles have to be appealing, but they can’t reveal too much,” said Barberis, who remained tight-lipped about any details of this year’s excursions.

It’s this intrigue that makes the 35-person trips so popular.

“There is a lot of folklore about what had gone on the summer before,” said Michelle Levy, of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who has gone on two excursions. She took part in setting the world record for the most people to use one piece of floss at the same time; she swam in Brooklyn’s invitation-only Dumpster pools, and she met the man who spends his days building rock sculptures on Staten Island.

“Everywhere you go you’re met by a different person who engages you in a different activity,” she said. “It’s like a Huckleberry Finn adventure.”

The Flux Factory commissions a different individual or team of local artists to concoct each of the six day trips and one overnight trip – which will span seven weekends beginning July 10.

Carolyn Lambert, of Ridgewood, has planned two “Going Places (Doing Stuff)” outings. She collaborated with artist Siobhan Rigg to create a trip dubbed “From Solid to Liquid” last August. They took people to the South Street Seaport, the Seaman’s Church Institute, Ikea and Kearney Marsh in New Jersey – all to explore the city’s connection with the melting Arctic Circle and the Northwest Passage.

“It was just fantastic to have people who are willing to trust you for eight hours and let themselves be at your whim,” Lambert said.

The trips are so popular that they often sell out in a matter of minutes. The cost for the day trips is $20 while the overnighter is $40.

Barberis has also been approached by an artists’ collective in Miami that wants to create its own version of “Going Places (Doing Stuff).”

“It’s a great project,” Barberis said. “I’m glad to see someone replicating it.”

Read the original article here.

Watch the video here!

A group of artists are showing they, too, have an inner scientist with an unusual art event in Long Island City this weekend. NY1’s Stephanie Simon filed the following report.

Beakers, Bunson burners, and dioramas may bring back bad memories of high school science class. But a new type of Science Fair is showcasing works by artists inspired by science.

Samwell Freeman considers technology is a life line.

“So this is a project called ‘Line Life’ and the idea is sort of to build a population of physical and virtual drawings,” he explains. “The drawings are built using accelerometer-based soft controller, and you gesture in the air and that is translated into a drawing, a physical drawing, that the robot makes.”

Science Fair takes place this weekend in LIC and is presented by two artist collectives, Flux Factory and The Metric System.

“So Science Fair is kind of based on the typical ‘middle school science fair,’ where we structured it to offer artists to submit their proposals based in some theoretical science project but in a visual form,” says Ambre Kelly of The Metric System.

Some of the science may be a bit tongue in cheek, but all of the projects do recall science class – like plant slides inspired by a real school science project, a glue gun used to prevent detection by satellite imaging, and artist Flint Weisser’s Kelvin water drop generator, which generates static electricity through water drops.

“I think physics is beautiful,” he says. “I mean, to me, that’s like the most beautiful system that I can collaborate with.”

There’s also a custom quantum teleportation experience, requiring the viewer to first share some information.

“It will basically send you to another point in space and time while you are simultaneously in Queens,” says artist Chad Stayrook. “It’s based on a questionnaire that each person fills out and we then tailor it to those answers.”

Artist Scott Kildall’s ‘science project’ calculates your stress levels, but instead of straight readings, he translates the stress and relaxation levels into other images.

“This one is giving me a relaxation response, and I can tell that because I’m getting a lot of imagery of things moving through the ocean really quietly and softly,” Kildall says.

[We] walked over to Flux Factory for Man Bartlett’s first New York solo show.  Barlett was at the space and when we arrived he was happy to see us. The place looked clean and a little solemn. Small ink drawings were placed under glass on a table, burned wood pieces hung on the wall, one large drawing was sitting on a drafting table, and another sculptural installation stretched across one wall. There was a constant trickle of people coming in to look at the art and everyone seemed receptive. Bartlett’s work was sparse and controlled. They were equal parts cerebral and emotional, no one side dominated the other. Veken and I shared a can of beer and lingered to see how the work would change. It felt a little religious, but I’m an atheist, what do I know.

At long last I made a connection with the Flux Factory. They’d been on my radar for about two years, during which time I had made several feeble attempts to contact them via email and telephone. Over the course of those two years, I remotely watched them wrangle through ‘life threatening’ issues like finding a new space, as their former ‘factory’ had been committed to another purpose, and for a while they ran a ‘virtual factory’.

The Flux Factory is an amalgam of artists that seems to operate as a sort of socialistic whole. Yeah, I’m not sure exactly what that means either, but intuitively I think it’s an apt description. Click here to read the full story about the Flux Factory in the LIC / Long Island City neighborhood of Queens.

By Audrey Dimola

Despite the many changes our little-nabe-that-could is constantly undergoing, Long Island City’s arts community still finds a way to endure – always seeming to discover new ways to express itself. Last week’s Armory Fest did much to drive this point home, especially on a Long Island City Night art-hop from gallery to unique gallery, all within walking distance. For one, ever-evolving artist collective Flux Factory offered up a tour of their new 8,000 SF space and the colossal ‘Housebroken’ exhibition that takes place through every room (they even have an aviary!). Flux’s is another story of artistic triumph – they’ve reinvented themselves yet again, and on an even grander scale, after being pushed out of their previous space back in ‘08.

Read the whole article here.

Across New York City, arts organizations have needed to tighten their budgets, reduce staff and cutback on programs or events. In fact, 80 percent of arts groups surveyed by the Alliance for the Arts, a New York-based research and advocacy organization, said they were trimming down their budgets, and more than half were reducing staff and postponing or cancelling events in 2009.

Flux Factory, a non-profit cultural organization in Long Island City, has had to scale back its projects and stop paying staff. But it has managed to continue providing artists with a place to create and display their work, despite cuts in funding.

It has coped thanks to a sense of community among artists in Long Island City who must work together in order for their art to survive.

Last summer, Flux moved in to an old 8,000-square-foot, three-story greeting card factory, transforming it into a bastion for the arts in which performers, painters and musicians can collaborate, support each other and weather the financial crisis. Flux runs a residency program for artists, commissions new collaborative works and is invited by host institutions to do projects.

But Flux, like most other cultural organizations in the city, has by no means been insulated from the economic downturn. It has seen most of its private donations dry up. It was promised $10,000 in state funding but then the state never paid. Its operating budget is down by about $60,000 compared to previous years.

Artists are traditionally among the first to be affected by economic slumps. The city’s unemployment rate hit 10.3 percent in October. Artists were unemployed at twice the rate of professional workers in 2008, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. Many outside of Flux have lost their work spaces and have had to get day jobs to pay the bills. Artwork sales are also down.

“Sales have been slow,” said Heather Jones, a multimedia artist and Flux Factory resident artist. “Galleries have been extending their shows or choosing to close during the down season. Non-saleable, installation-based art has taken the biggest hit. Galleries are a lot less willing to invest thousands of dollars on art that’s experimental.”

For artists, finding affordable studio space is often very difficult. Flux rents 14 studio spaces to artists for about $450 to $750 per month – below market rates but slightly up since previous years – and its main gallery space for around $1,000 per night.

“I work for an artist who had a large free studio in Chelsea, and then the building was re-appropriated for smaller, expensive studios and we couldn’t afford to stay,” said Jones. “A lot of galleries in that neighborhood were shutting their doors. A lot of free spaces were taken away because people could no longer afford to give away studios.”

How Flux ended up at the greeting card factory in Long Island City is a story similar to that described by Jones.

Flux Factory was launched in 1994 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The tenants were evicted in 2001 when Williamsburg became the trendy place to be and rents soared. In 2002, Flux moved to Long Island City.

Flux was evicted again in 2008 when their building was taken over by the MTA through eminent domain. Optimists Chen Tamir and Jean Barberis, the directors, saw this as an opportunity for growth.

“You make your opportunities,” said Barberis.

Flux took the money it got from the MTA and moved. Volunteers have donated countless hours of their time fixing up the factory on 39-31 29th St. With their help it has been turned into one of Long Island City’s most talked about art institutions.

Since 2002, Flux has showcased more than 500 artists from the U.S. and around the world, according to Barberis.

“Flux is in a really wonderful position where we’ve been around for so long and we’ve created this amazing community, which is really what we’re all about,” Tamir explained. “We can rely on that community, or we’re hoping that we can rely on that community, to support us.”

But despite the duo’s sanguinity, continuing to operate during an economic downturn has not been easy.

Flux can no longer afford to pay staff and artists, or take on as ambitious projects. It used to pay artists when it commissioned works but now even has a hard time affording materials.

The collective was able to fix up the old factory with donated supplies and labor. But the place still needs major renovations such as installing a second bathroom and, even more pressing for the winter months ahead, fixing the heating system.

Flux holds free weekly and monthly events, but attendees are encouraged to leave a donation.

Tamir and Barberis are trying a new approach to raise funds this month. On Dec. 10, Flux is having a fundraising night with performances and music sponsored by local stores and caterers such as Vine Wine, Blink’s Deli and Heritage Foods, and Campari, the alcoholic aperitif. Flux will be selling box sets of limited edition works by eleven artists including well-known Andrea Dezsö, Swoon and Ward Shelley. Flux Factory plans on selling the art online afterward and is setting up a Kickstarter webpage – an innovative funding platform for artists or pretty much anyone with an idea and too few dollars to make it happen.

The event is the first of its kind at Flux, and demonstrates how artists are donating work and time to help raise money for the collective.

The art scene in Long Island City has been able to maintain itself through cooperation, volunteerism and innovation, said Tamir. She believes that overall things are beginning to improve, and hopes Flux will be able to keep putting on new shows for New Yorkers to enjoy.

In the meantime, artists such as Heather Jones continue producing art thanks to their resourcefulness, determination and places like Flux.

“Affordable studio spaces are very difficult to find and here you have studio space, you have common space, you have a gallery space, support to work on your ideas, extra hands, etcetera,” said Jones. “It’s really incredible.”

Read the original article here.

This episode features Flux’s very own Chen Tamir and Jean Barberis!

http://www.heritageradionetwork.com/episodes/339-Eat-To-The-Beat

Arctic Book Club: Artists Respond to An African in Greenland

By Nancy Campbell

This autumn, Flux Factory and EFA Project Space presented Arctic Book Club in Manhattan. Curated by Jean Barberis and Michelle Levy, the exhibition was the result of an epic several-month long journey by a group of artists responding to Tété-Michel Kpomassie’s book, An African in Greenland.

An African in Greenland recounts the author’s pilgrimage from his native Togo to Greenland. Fascinated with the distant Arctic, Kpomassie embarked on a ten-year journey across Africa and Europe, working as a translator along the way, and eventually saving enough money to complete his odyssey.
In the Spring of 2009, Flux Factory and EFA assembled a cross-disciplinary group of artists to respond to Kpomassie’s book. Those selected were Amber Cortes, Jenelle Covino, The Green and Bold Cooperative, Katerina Lanfranco, Fabienne Lasserre, Valerie Piraino, Greg Pond, Annie Reichert, Julian Rogers, Ranbir Sidhu and Christopher Ulivo. They met regularly as a book club, and upon completion of the book, they all created new work inspired by Kpomassie’s narrative.

Some artists responded very closely to the text. Members of The Green & Bold Cooperative (McDavid Moore, Matthew Gribbon, Steven Thompson) produced a hand-written transcription of the original French text L’Africain Du Groenland. The work was conducted live within a complex installation comprising four work benches protruding from what appeared to be a large stack of boulders. In Nomadic Work Desk w/ Approximate Lodestone (Exhibition Format) the artists took their cue from the Inuit hospitality demonstrated in the book, and broke off from their calligraphic labour to engage gallery visitors in conversation and offer coffee in a service modeled on the “Kaffenik” of the Greenlanders.

Other artists used the opportunity to explore the Arctic landscape. Katerina Lanfranco’s work reflects the extreme scales adopted by the elements, from the microscopic and elusive snow flake to the massive iceberg. Glacial Specimens (flame worked glass with clay and acrylic paint) consists of several small mixed media glass sculptures which capture the ephemeral nature of snow and ice crystals.

Midnight Sun, (hand-cut paper, 80 inches high) is a large paper-cut sculpture of an isolated iceberg seen in silhouette. A complex web of positive and negative spaces and shapes imply the angular ice forms and the contrast of dark and light are symbolic of the region’s Polar Night (total darkness) and Midnight Sun (total light). The form, like Greenland itself, drifts alone in the ocean and exists partially above and below water.

Christopher Ulivo designed a theatrical tribute to the story through a shadow puppet theatre. Rather than attempting to imitate Kpomassie’s style as storyteller, or engage in critical commentary, Ulivo chose to pay homage to the text by reworking it as a script for a shadow puppet show. As Ulivo developed his project, he realised that the puppet show was dramatically effective, not only because it conveyed the story directly, but also because its absolute dependence on the contrast between light and the absence of light is in direct correlation to Greenland’s black winters and endless summers. The naive, playful characteristic of the medium was also important to the artist: “There are repeated references in the book to ways in which the Inuit entertain each other in so barren a place. Tété’s vivid descriptions of dances, birthday parties and Christmas festivities all have the feeling of homespun craftiness and companionship. I hope our show can channel some of the spirit of Inuit mirth.”

Fabienne Lasserre created an installation made of human hair and plaster (Untitled). Long, dark hair hung down the gallery wall, overflowing onto the floor. The hair was covered in a thin layer of white poured plaster. Through the fluid texture of the plaster the disorderly and fibrous texture of the hair was visible; there were stark contrasts between the dark hair and the white plaster, between the shagginess of the hair and the smoothness of the plaster. Formalism and process, idealism and goofiness, purity and corruption exist in mutual agitation. The work drew inspiration from a similar tension in Kpomassie’s account of Greenland, which displays a contrast between the whiteness, the stillness and the beauty of the landscape and the dirty, visceral lifestyle of its inhabitants. Kpomassie constantly shifts from descriptions of faeces, guts, and blubber, to quasi-spiritual encounters with the environment.

Annie Reichert’s contribution to the Arctic Book Club was Souvenir Desk, an installation comprising a wooden desk in which the drawers were filled with mementos of Kpomassie’s journey. The desk was a found object that had been painted over several times by its previous owner. The artist sanded down the negative space around succeeding layers of grey, blue and white in order to reveal a topographic map of Greenland. The compact piece of furniture, comparable to one found in the cabin of a ship, was evocative of the physical space where an explorer would record his travel log. The desk also functioned as a metaphor for the writer’s mental space as he reconstructs his journey through memory and reflection.

Arctic Book Club: Artists Respond to An African in Greenland

Wednesdays-Saturdays. Continues through Oct. 24 2009
212-563-5855

Fifteen years old this year, Flux Factory is a nonprofit organization devoted to artist growth and general wackiness. Artwork is available year-round at fluxfactory.org, and the annual art auction, for which 125 artists submit one or two pieces for bidding, is scheduled to take place in February.

In the late 1950s, a West African boy reads a book about Greenland.  He dreams to someday travel there.  And he does.  Then, in the late 70s, he writes a book about his unique ten-year journey from his native Togo to Greenland.  The book goes on to win awards, including being one of The New York Times’ Notable Books of the year in 1983.

In 2009, a group of New York artists called the Arctic Book Club meet regularly for seven months to explore and discuss the book.  They then are asked to create art in response, and this Thursday, September 17, the exhibition opens.

The man we are talking about is Tété Michel Kpomassie, and the book, An African in Greenland.  And on September 23, the Arctic Book Club will welcome Tété Michel Kpomassie in a public dialogue about his reaction to their reaction arts exhibition.

You all still with me?

If you are as delighted and intrigued by this story as I am, here’s what we do.  Let’s read the book and visit the exhibition before October 24 (when it closes).  If you’re feeling really ambitious, maybe you will create your own Arctic Book Club Deux.  Or maybe you will go to the discussion on Sept. 23 and create your own reactionary song about Tété’s reaction to the exhibition that was in reaction to the book, or maybe not.  Regardless, the opening is FREE and makes for great blind date material!

Arctic Book Club
sponsored by EFA Project Space and Flux Factory
Thursday, September 17
323 West 39th Street, 2^nd Floor (between 8^th and 9^th Aves) [Manhattan]
6-8vpm Opening; $FREE
Continues through October 24

Public Discussion with Tété Michel Kpomassie
September 23
6:30 pm

From Broke-Ass Stuart’s Goddamn Website. Read the original here.

From Flavorpill.com:

To most ears, the police siren is simply a cacophonous necessity. But Mexico-born musician Lazaro Valiente – better described as a purveyor of funky, found sounds – appropriates that wail and other cop-car noises for an amusing, chaotic, and unusual experiment in composition. For example, in Police Car Quartet – the first of nine public happenings with similarly pithy titles like muchos Mexican barrel organs and visual concerts at red lights - Valiente turns variously pitched slides and blips from four cars into a symphonic siren-ade. Of course, the question remains: how did he sweet-talk the authorities? Tonight, the artist speaks, performs, and doles out some artworks.

- Jason Jude Chan

Read the original article here.

LIKE EVERY JEW worth his weight in gefilte fish and matzo balls, I put my full blind faith behind Moses.

“You have my personal fun guarantee,” proclaims the bearded Moses Gates, that is. The miracle maker is a licensed tour guide, a fearless investigator of sewers and subway tunnels, a climber of bridges, an urban explorer of the rusty and the forgotten. His municipal mania even extends to trying to walk every NYC census tract- 2,217 in total, including 783 in Brooklyn.

Moses knows New York. And today, a sticky, humid Saturday – are there other kinds come late July? – Moses shall share his city secrets on arts organization Flux Factory’s “Going Places, Doing Stuff” tour. Elementally, it’s an adult field trip, school bus included. About 40 thrill-seekers convene at Flux’s Long Island City headquarters, carrying water, snacks, whiskey and healthy curiosity. Itineraries are secret till departure, whereupon folks are whisked to, say, a crumbling Hudson River castle or Centralia, a Pennsylvania mining town devastated by a burning coal seam.

Flux’s voyages are so fun, you’ll kick yourself for missing the 9:30 a.m. departure.

“Hurry, hon!” I shout to my girlfriend, her eyes as lidded as Snoop Dogg’s on a smoky Friday night. She is not a creature to be denied caffeine.

“I am hurrying,” she says, pulling on a green tee. “Button your pants.” Barn door sealed, we boogie to the B48, then the B61 buses. Forty-five minutes later, the route, if I may utilize this word, terminates near an abortion clinic. “Can I rub your belly?” I ask my girlfriend, as we pass pro-lifers planted in lawn chairs.

They’re applying sunscreen as if it were a day at the beach. “Not funny,” she says, my wit falling as flat as days-old Diet Coke. “Maybe I should tell them we like our eggs scrambled, not fertilized,” I mumble, dreaming of my missing breakfast. With minutes to spare, we reach the vegetable-oil-powered bus – French fries faintly perfume the air – and squish in beside dreadlocked hippies, artists in patched pants and lesbians in love. Moses cues up a musical clue to our first stop: frenetic guitar riffs and rock, rock, Rockaway Beach.

“Watch out for the poison ivy,” Moses says, leading us through thick brush and poking branches to the Promised Land. It’s a rusty hatch, like the kind found on Lost, leading us to an underground nuclear-missile bunker. “It was New York’s last line of defense,” Moses says, pointing to a waterlogged launch platform that could kill commies with a fiery flourish. The nuclear apocalypse: so close to home! Back through the brush, back to the bus. “Listen up,” Moses says, playing a song with sitars.

“That’s Hindi!” someone shouts, the school bus bringing out everyone’s inner teacher’s pet. “Correct,” Moses says, as we steer toward Flushing’s Hindu Temple Society, North America’s largest such holy house.

Here, families and the devout make offerings to many-armed Ganesh statues and, like us, head downstairs to gorge at the underground Temple Canteen (45-57 Bowne St. betw. Holly & 45th Aves., Queens, 718- 460-8493).The fluorescent-lit mess hall welcomes all religious affiliations to tear into its crisp, paper-thin dosas- southern Indian crepes crammed with chutneys, curries and other meat-free marvels.

“It’s… all… vegetarian food!” my girlfriend says, happy as a kid on Halloween. Even sweeter? Nothing is more than $6. We overdose on squiggly idiappam rice noodles; savory, doughnut-like vadas swimming in yogurt; pastry-flaky potato samosas and two kinds of dosa: the fiery Hyderabadi, kicked up with green-chili chutney, and the four-alarm paneer. The buttery mess of spongy cottage cheese is such a tongue-scalder that I steal sips of my girlfriend’s cooling mango lassi. “Don’t drink it all,” she cautions, grabbing back her creamy concoction.

Full to bursting – and rubbing our bellies in a far more appropriate context – our gang waddles upstairs. I sneak to a bodega to buy a 24-ounce Bud Light Lime. It’s an artificially flavored abomination that, despite my avowed craft-beer love, I turn to during torpid summer afternoons. It’s my dirty little secret, like ordering General Tso’s chicken from bulletproof-window Chinese dive Ho Wong when I’m hungover. I sip my Lime (sleeved in a brown bag) while Moses reveals our next stop. He’s song-less, but his words remain music to my ears: “We’re going gambling at Belmont Park!” Belmont is a horse track, a classy alternative to the shabby Aqueduct. Kind of. Whereas the Aqueduct costs a buck, Belmont charges two. “And the track lets us bring in coolers of beer – which we have in back.”

The travelers roar with approval, before boning up on the differences between win, place and show. “Moses,” I tell my tour guide, grabbing a Tecate and entering Belmont to blow this column’s paycheck, “you have delivered on the fun.”

See the original article here.

Follow the link!

BY Pauline Pechin

Tuesday, July 21st 2009, 10:11 AM

NEW YORK CITY is home to cultural organizations in just about every medium. But the recession has forced local groups to find alternative solutions to stretch scarce resources.

One example is the Center for the Holographic Arts in Long Island City, the only program in the city geared toward emerging holographers.

After losing a $50,000 grant this year, the nonprofit group relocated its equipment and residency program to Ohio State University. It also moved its exhibition program to the Flux Factory, a Queens-based artists’ collective.

Flux Factory “is designed so that there’s enough room for everything to evolve,” said Martina Mrongovius, manager of the holographic arts program. “I think some interesting things are going to come out of [the collaboration].”

Chen Tamir, executive director of Flux Factory, said she has relied heavily on volunteers since the facility’s relocation to a warehouse in Dutch Kills. The organization was evicted in October from its previous space to make way for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s East Side Access project.

“Even though our programming grants were cut drastically, our greatest resource – our community – has grown,” Tamir said. “So many folks are now unemployed and looking to get involved in supportive communities.”

The Queens Museum of Art has reduced its programming and staff to help shoulder its $48 million expansion project. The museum recently launched its Adopt-A-Building program, which allows patrons to own “real estate” on the Panorama of New York City for $50 to $10,000 donations. In June, the museum also hosted its second annual “Non-Gala,” an online fund-raiser utilizing social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

“I don’t want to sound partisan, but [it is] the Obama-style fund-raising, where you’re getting a lot of small donations from a lot of people adding up,” said Executive Director Tom Finkelpearl.

“Everyone has to be thinking that way because now you have to look at new paradigms for fund-raising.”

The SculptureCenter in Long Island City is talking to a benefactor to supplement its admissions fees.

Executive Director Mary Ceruti said revenue from the center’s two largest fund-raisers in the past year was down about 12% combined.

“The challenge will be finding ways to rethink the programming so that we can deliver on our mission – to foster experimental and innovative sculpture,” she said.

Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer, executive director of the Queens Council on the Arts, said that despite the economic turbulence, artists by nature are accustomed to uncertainty, and are resilient.

“I think you will see some very innovative ways of surviving and actually succeeding that will come out of these diverse communities,” Krakauer said.

http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/features/74835/new-places-in-nyc/2.html

PDF

NY Times – Urban Eye Weekend
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/urbaneye/index.html

PDF

The laws of physics state that bodies in motion come to rest only when an external force stops them. But Newton’s theory would have required tweaking had he met Jean Barberis, the affable 30-year-old curator of Queens gallery Flux Factory, who barely stops moving, even after roadblocks have been thrown into his path. Barberis is constantly working on the next exhibit for the gallery and aptly named art space – it changes addresses as often as one might change apartments. He also can’t stop creating curios and art exhibits for installations across the five boroughs. “I like working as a curator and I always want to do something with my hands,” says Barberis, who resides in Woodside, Queens. “Who wants to sit at a desk all day, when I can be building stuff?”

This curator-carpenter-art-installer was born in Aix-en-Provence, a small French town just outside Marseille. At the age of 18, Barberis had his first solo art show – an installation inspired by a series of photo collages – at a small nonprofit art gallery in the nearby town of Montpelier. “It was a small show, mostly friends and family. I realized that your main audience is your community. That’s where you start and that’s what you have to build from,” says Barberis.

Just four years later, Barberis followed his girlfriend at the time to New York City, where she happened to be subletting a room at the Flux Factory, a collective launched in 1994 and named for the ever-changing cast of occupants. Barberis was drawn to the space (which was then next to the East River in Williamsburg) and the eclectic mix of artists and designers better known for their weekly dinners and parties than for their art. But the challenge to having a home in NYC isn’t just finding it, it’s keeping it. The tenants of the Flux Factory were evicted in 2001 when Williamsburg became increasingly popular and rents started soaring.

“We had to redefine ourselves as an organization. It was a challenge to find a new space where we could be more ambitious. That takes up a lot of energy, but it’s also a way to get a new start,” says Barberis, of Flux’s move to a converted warehouse in Long Island City, Queens. And so began the long, vagrant history of one of New York’s most unconventional art spaces.

That first summer in Queens (in 2002) was critical for Barberis as a curator. He helped mount the exhibit “When Everybody Agrees, It Means Nobody Understood,” in the Queens Museum. Flux artists literally dismantled part of the museum’s gallery space, tunneling into the walls to spy on visitors who were walking around the plastic installation they created. “I’m constantly trying different formats, constantly trying to challenge the notions of what an art exhibit is supposed to be and look like,” says Barberis.

In October 2008, only six years into a fifteen-year lease, Flux was evicted from its LIC space on 43rd Street; the building was taken through eminent domain by the MTA for its East Side Access Project. Due to the gallery’s physical uncertainty, Barberis realized that art exhibits could be portable and, perhaps more important, experiential. The result was “Going Places (Doing Stuff),” a free tour, offered for the first time last summer and running again this June, where local artists serve as guides to busloads of visitors for day trips around the boroughs of New York. Barberis calls it “road trip as performance art.”

The fact that the gallery is constantly moving requires most of Flux’s contributors to seek employment outside of its ever-changing walls. Barberis is not only the curator at Flux Factory, he also works as a freelance carpenter and art installer. “I have never been in a situation at Flux where we could just throw money at the problem,” Barberis says. “Flux has extremely limited resources when it comes to money, but unlimited resources when it comes to people. We have an amazing community of artists that we can tap into at any moment.”

Of course, Barberis is one of the most astounding of these artists: In addition to his performance art, Barberis crafts curious art-cum-furniture by transforming vintage suitcases into wall-mounted vanity cases (available at vanitycase.etsy.com). These delightful bits of ephemera, filled with all of the essentials you’d have in a bar or boudoir, mix old-world design with practicality – they’re like functional dioramas.

And, finally, on Barberis’s to-do list is to renovate Flux Factory’s newest space, an 8,000-square-foot, three-story former greeting-card factory on 29th Street in Long Island City. But don’t pity him; it’s only because there’s always something to do that Barberis has stuck around this long. “I thought I might spend a few months at Flux. But ten years later, here I am.” he says. Be sure to catch “Going Places (Doing Stuff), Best Summer Ever Edition” June 20th through September 9th. Details are vague, but Barberis says there may be snacks. For info contact him at info@fluxfactory.org.

Barberis’s five keys to a successful art exhibit

1 Don’t think about it – do it.
2 It takes will to coordinate people and resources.
3 You need to use your social skills and be flexible.
4 Always have your friends and family help you.
5 Art can be displayed anywhere.

Barberis’s career timeline

1978 Jean Barberis is born on August 6.
1996 Barberis has his first solo exhibit.
2000 Barberis arrives in New York City.
2001 Flux Factory is ejected from the Williamsburg space.
2002 Flux Factory moves to Long Island City, Queens.
2008 Flux Factory is evicted from its 43rd Street space.
2009 Flux Factory signs a lease for its new LIC space.

See the original article here.

By Todd Lester, March 19, 2009.

As with many civil society initiatives, it is sometimes necessary to change space … and sometimes necessary to fight for the one you already have. Herewith I am re-posting two notes from the Flux Factory and SFAI:

[Flux Factory]

After our recent eviction in October, Flux Factory is setting up house (again) in our beloved Long Island City, Queens!

We’re excited to report that we’ll be occupying an 8000 square foot, 3 story building just two blocks north of Queens Plaza at 39-31 29th street. We’re working with the wonderful HWKN design team to create a multi-purpose arts center with galleries, studios, and production facilities.

The new Flux Factory will still be devoted to producing collaborative projects and providing affordable work residencies for artists. We’ve got wonderful projects coming up in 2009, including our famous bus tours and a grande science fair! And of course an inaugural show once we’re done renovations. See: http://www.fluxfactory.org/flux-factory-is-moving/

http://freedimensional.ning.com/forum/topics/flux-factory-moving-and-santa

L Magazine – July 29, 2008
Matt Levy’s Lost in History: All Boro Bonanza

Spare Times – NYTIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/arts/11wspare.html?ex=1373515200&en=5ddc117d0609ba4c&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Flux Factory Is Hoping To Take You Away

http://www.queenstribune.com/leisure/FluxFactoryIsHopingToTakeY.html

A Couple Weekend Ideas
http://www.thelmagazine.com/lmag_blog/blog/post__06130801.cfm

Lost in History vol. 65: Staten Island Adventures!

First grand tour of the Going Places (Doing Stuff) project

BY LISA L. COLANGELO

Tuesday, April 29th 2008, 4:00 AM

Noonan for News

Pierre deSanctis holds his son, Luca, in front of a wrestling head lock photo, as mom, Sophie, looks on at the Flux Factory.

A massive yellow piñata wearing a MetroCard and a fluorescent safety vest hangs in the Flux Factory’s Long Island City home.

The piece, created by artists Cassandra Ferland and Kate Watson, is called “Tough Love.”

It’s a playful, yet pointed, reminder of a looming deadline imposed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on the art gallery.

The MTA acquired the building by eminent domain and plans to demolish it to make way for the East Side Access project, which will connect the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal.

“We still don’t have a date from the MTA,” said Stefany Anne Goldberg, executive director of the Flux Factory. “We want to stay in Queens, particularly Long Island City. We are talking to everyone we can.”

City Councilman Eric Gioia, whose district includes Long Island City, Woodside and Sunnyside, said he would like the Flux Factory to stay local.

“Its rich cultural and artistic community is part of what makes Long Island City such a special place, and the Flux Factory has been a part of that,” he said. “My office is on the lookout for other locations that might be appropriate for them.”

The Flux Factory, which started in 1994, moved to Queens in 2002 after gentrification priced it out of its home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Goldberg said she was thrilled to sign a 15-year lease for the 7,500-square-foot space at 38-38 43rd St. and settle in.

But the building stands in the path of the MTA’s $6.3 billion megaproject. The agency used eminent domain to acquire the building and informed the tenants – several business owners and the Flux Factory – that it will be leveling the building.

Flux Factory’s final show – aptly titled “Everything Must Go” – ended last weekend with a party.

Golberg said the popular artists’ collective will continue holding shows throughout the year, even if they have to move out by the end of the summer.

lcolangelo@nydailynews.com

Watch the video here!

Some artists in Queens who will be forced from their studios are using an art exhibit to expres frustrations over the MTA’s East Side Access Project.

Artists who work at the Flux Factory in Long Island City, which is being closed and demolished as part of the project, are holding one more show — called “Everything Must Go” – before the building’s doors are shut forever.

“We have an artist who is going to be making, no offense to any actual MTA workers, it’s going to be an MTA worker pinata that we’ll have at the final party,” said Flux Factory director Stefany Anne Golberg.

Flux Factory began as an artist collective in the early 1990s and has been in this space in Long Island City since 2002. At the site, artists create, collaborate, and showcase their art. Many live at the site, as well.

But with the MTA getting ready to demolish the building, artists like Nick Normal need to find new places to live by the end of the month. The situation inspired his artwork.

“I guess the idea was to remove all my personal belongings from my quarters, from my room, and to build a kind of architecture, a Ziggurat as it is, and something that I might be able to live in, in the future,” said artist Nick Normal.

The artists haven’t left an inch of the space untouched. One artist has transformed a very small computer room into a jungle.

Artist Andrea Dezso was also inspired by greener pastures.

“My piece is titled ÎEnjoy It While It Lasts,’” said Dezso. “It’s a large mural and it deals with the idea that we tend to think about murals and public art as permanent and this public art was created with the idea that the space where it lives will be demolished very soon.”

The MTA is razing the building as part of its East Side Access Project, which will connect two Long Island Rail Road lines to Grand Central Station.

In a statement, the MTA said, “The new connection will increase the LIRR’s capacity into Manhattan, dramatically shorten travel time for Long Island and eastern Queens commuters traveling to the east side of Manhattan, and free capacity at Penn Station to allow Metro-North riders to reach the west side.”

As for Flux Factory, it’s looking for a new space but will continue to offer arts programming at various locations after the building closes at the end of the month.

For more information on the Flux Factory show, visit www.fluxfactory.org.

you can read more about it here:

amNY/Newsday
http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-flux1219,0,1036878.story

Queens Chronicle

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19186405&BRD=2731&PAG=461&dept_id=574903&rfi=6′

Queens Courier

http://www.queenscourier.com/articles/2008/01/10/news/regional/northwest_west/news04.txt

Stamford Advocate

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/newyork/am-flux1219,0,7215939.story?coll=ny_news_local_newyork_head_1

BLOGS
http://curbed.com/archives/2007/12/19/lics_flux_factory_to_fall_for_commuter_tunnel.php/

http://gothamist.com/2007/12/20/in_flux.php

http://www.nolandgrab.org/archives/2007/12/eminent_domaini_56.html

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19186405&BRD=2731&PAG=461&dept_id=574903&rfi=6′

http://www.liqcity.com/arts/

http://queens.about.com/b/2007/12/19/vote-for-the-worst-of-queens-2007.htm

19/03/07 – NEW YORK DIARY

One man’s failure is another man’s work of art

SIMON HOUPT

New York can be a scary place, but the most ominous thing I’ve seen in the last few weeks consisted of a log. That was it: just a log (actually, even more prosaic: a section of a fallen telephone pole), maybe one and a half metres in length, suspended about two metres off the ground. And boy, did it give me the shivers.

If you’ve seen the droll 1996 Peter Lynch documentary Project Grizzly, you may have some sense of why it was so threatening. For logs are one of the many projectiles that collide with the quixotic North Bay outdoorsman Troy Hurtubise as he tests a homemade titanium-rubber-and-chain mail suit designed to withstand an attack from a grizzly bear.

Hurtubise had been obsessed with ursus arctos horribilis since 1984 when, then 20 years old, he was hiking through the backwoods of British Columbia and came face to face with a grizzly. The encounter left him shaken but determined to meet the bear he’d dubbed ‘the Old Man’ again, this time in a protective suit that would allow him to get close without being injured.

Lynch’s camera respectfully follows Hurtubise in a quest that consumed seven years and $150,000, as he fine tunes the contraption and then heads out to the Rockies with his buddies.

Alas, the suit is so heavy and awkward — he can barely walk even on the flat terrain of a North Bay doughnut shop parking lot — that he has to abandon it even before a grizzly materializes.

Quentin Tarantino sent a Charlie Rose end-of-year film roundtable into peals of laughter when he described the film — which none of the esteemed film critics had yet seen — and pronounced it “fantastic.” Three years ago, in an episode titled The Fat and the Furriest, The Simpsons sent Homer on a quest to build a bear-proof suit. And more than 220,000 YouTube viewers have checked out a goofy two-minute clip from the film that shows Troy testing his suit by being thrown off the Niagara Escarpment in Ontario, having bear-like bikers beat him with baseball bats and having a truck run into him at 50 km/h.

A couple of years ago the New York-based curator and artist Jean Barberis was visiting Montreal when he spotted some drawings inspired by the film. He got a copy and immediately saw its potential as a spur for artists, and earlier this month the show Grizzly Proof opened at the converted industrial space Flux Factory in Queens (the North Bay of New York) with a sold-out screening of Lynch’s film.

“I almost see Troy’s project as a work of art,” says Barberis. “It fails in its purpose, it’s not a viable grizzly-proof suit, you can’t walk around in it, so the only thing I see it as is an art project. A lot of the time art is about grandiose endeavours that have no end in them except being what they are, and that’s like Troy’s project.”

Hurtubise, who is normally something of a publicity hog, didn’t return phone calls to see how he felt about his life’s work being called a failure. Flux Factory had originally hoped to feature the grizzly suit in the show but, “Troy wanted $10,000 a day for it,” said Barberis. He added, dryly, “Our budget doesn’t come close to that.”

Lynch, who flew down for the screening, contributes his first work of non-photographic art, a camping tent wired with a five-minute soundtrack loop. Stick your head in and you’ll hear a wintry wind howling outside, then barking dogs off in the distance, and then the unnerving snort and snuff of a grizzly on the other side of the flap.

Last week Lynch said he’d drawn on the experience of his first night in the Rockies during shooting in 1995, when Troy’s whimsical project began to take on some unseen higher stakes. “There was a storm and there was something outside my tent, and my producer and I were sitting there — he had an axe and I think I had some kind of knife, and we were just going: What the hell is that out there? My imagination went into high voltage pretty fast.”

Lisa Dillin offers a different take with Bear Hug Sleeping Unit, a sleeping bag fitted with a bear head at the top that fits snuggly atop the face of the sleeper and is outfitted with a reassuring low growl.

Ian Montgomery has contributed a two-metre high origami ursus made of brown wrapping paper titled What it Takes to Fold a Giant Bear. A display shows the 24 required steps, so you too can try this at home.

In the back lounge I found my favourite piece in the show, a heavy duty foosball table made from scratch by the Brooklyn artist Chris Hackett and the transplanted Torontonian Eleanor Lovinsky. Instead of rival soccer teams, the players are miniature grizzlies and men wearing Troy’s space-age grizzly-proof suit. The controls are about chest height, making the entire game more suited to be played by a bear than humans.

It seemed impolite not to play, so Barberis took the Troy controls and I took the grizzly’s side in a game that quickly took on the same dimensions of bottomless time that Troy and his friends endure during the film’s final ill-fated stakeout in the Rockies. Barberis-as-Troy and I-as-bear stalked the elusive ball and each other from one end of the playing field to the other until finally I scored after about 10 minutes. We decided to play only up to 2, and Barberis scored the next couple of goals. Maybe I took it easy on him, I’m not sure. It just seemed that Troy deserved to finally win a round.

DIRECT LINK TO VIDEO

Tucked away in an industrial section of Long Island City, New York, an art Gallery called the ‘Flux Factory’ is launching an unusual art exhibit.

‘Grizzly Proof’ draws together works from over 20 artists inspired the film ‘Project Grizzly, a documentary about an eccentric Canadian who builds a bear proof suit after reportedly being attacked by a Grizzly bear.

The 1996 documentary by the Toronto based filmmaker Peter Lynch is a profile of metal worker Troy Hurtubise, who survived a Grizzly bear attack in 1984 and then spends years building and testing a bear attack proof suit of armor.

Lynch says his documentary has become a sort of cult classic.

SOUNDBITE: Peter Lynch, Filmmaker, saying (English):

“Project Grizzly, it’s one of those things where it’s got nine lives, first it gets discovered by a famous filmmaker like Tarantino and then it gets spoofed on ‘The Simpsons’ and then all of a sudden some artists in Queens, New York are doing a tribute to your film and it’s very surreal, it’s very moving as well.”

The show features 17 works of art, ranging from sculpture, to drawing, to mixed media.

Lynch said he was ‘overwhelmed’ that his documentary has managed to strike a cord with so many people, especially outside of Canada.

Katie Juhl, Reuters.

March 9, 7:54 AM

Grizzly Proof Exhibit Comes To Flux Factory

Katerina Lanfranco’s bear diorama.

By JENNIFER POLLAND

Jean Barberis, the head curator at Flux Factory, was casually browsing through a thrift shop in Montreal when he stumbled on “a childish drawing of a grizzly bear fighting a robot.” Intrigued, he asked the clerk about the drawing. That led him to “Project Grizzly,” a film that illustrates one man’s quest to conquer nature.

Peter Lynch’s comedic documentary “Project Grizzly” tells the story of Troy Hurtubise, a man who survived a vicious attack by a grizzly bear in the Canadian Rockies, and embarked on an obsessive mission to create a “grizzly proof” suit of armor. The film shows Hurtubise testing his suit in various violent ways, with ramming trucks, flying logs and baseball bats. After a series of tests, Hurtubise heads back to grizzly country for an adventure that naturally ends in failure.

“The documentary is a really funny piece of film,” Barberis said. “It shows Troy as a type of Don Quixote figure, who is obsessed with finding a way to defeat nature, but, of course, he inevitably fails.”

“Project Grizzly” has grown into a huge phenomenon; it has even been parodied on “The Simpsons.” Barberis was so taken by the film that he decided to curate Grizzly Proof, an art exhibition at Flux Factory that is inspired by Lynch’s film. In this show, Barberis invited more than 20 artists from around the world to create their own responses to the documentary. Artists were asked to take on the age-old theme of man versus nature, which resulted in an eclectic and dynamic range of paintings, sculptures and multimedia artworks.

Katerina Lanfranco created a diorama-style sculptural installation that was inspired by the dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History. In this 15-by-4-foot glass-encased installation, Lanfranco displays a 7-foot sculpture of a hybrid-bear – with a longer tail, horns and abnormal growths – in its “natural” habitat.

“This piece is a critique on us wanting to contain and control nature,” Lanfranco said. “Troy is obsessed with using super technology to retaliate against the grizzly bear. It almost becomes like a psychotic desire to control nature, and in the end it is a very pathetic and desperate mission.”

Barberis said that Lanfranco’s piece is “cartoonish” yet “scientific.” Lanfranco puts the artist in the position of scientist by “re-blending two aesthetics that are completely different,” Barberis said.

Like Lanfranco, each artist interprets “Project Grizzly” in his or her own way. The film’s director, Lynch, even created an installation for this exhibition: a multimedia installation that draws on humans’ fear of nature by recreating the threatening sounds of the wild.

“The film is interesting and inspiring, and I think that resonated with the artists,” Barberis said. “I think that it is a very fun and playful show. It’s sort of unique in that everyone is responding to a single object, and there is an enigmatic element about that.”

Grizzly Proof will run March 9 to April 12 at Flux Factory in LIC. The show will kick off Friday at 6:30 p.m. with a screening of “Project Grizzly,” followed by a Q & A session with director Peter Lynch at the New Center Cinema in Sunnyside. For more information call (718) 707-3362 or visit www.fluxfactory.org.

Kodiak moment

Eleven years after its release, Peter Lynch’s man-versus-bear documentary inspires artists at Flux Factory.

By Dan Avery

When Canadian documentary filmmaker Peter Lynch completed work on Project Grizzly in 1996, he knew he had something special on his hands. Detailing Troy Hurtubise’s quest to create the ultimate anti-grizzly bear armor, the film taps into something primal – capturing Hurtubise’s struggle to tame personal demons even as he shields himself from furry predators. Since its release, Project Grizzly has garnered a fan base that includes Quentin Tarantino and Matthew Barney (it even earned the Holy Grail of pop culture- a reference on The Simpsons). More than a decade later, Project Grizzly has resurfaced as the inspiration for “Grizzly Proof,” a new exhibition of bear-themed installations at Flux Factory (the film will screen before the show’s official opening on Friday 9). Lynch chatted with TONY from his Toronto home about Grizzly’s enduring appeal, his contribution to the Flux Factory show and why a certain comedic commentator has it in for our ursine friends.

Where did the idea for Project Grizzly come from?

I had been doing films about people who map their own territory. A producer asked if I wanted to do something on this guy up north who was working on a bear-proof suit. After meeting Troy and seeing how charismatic he was, I knew it’d translate well into a story.

Is Hurtubise a serious inventor, a raconteur or a humanitarian?

He’s all of it. There’s a part of him that’s P.T. Barnum, but there’s also a Matthew Barney kind of performance art to it. Troy sees himself doing something to benefit humanity, but there’s a real gap between his vision and reality that’s fascinating. I mean, the chest plate is titanium but then another part is just covered in gaffer tape. It’s like an inflated hockey uniform.

What are you contributing to “Grizzly Proof”?

It’s a tent in a dark room, lit only by a Coleman lamp. You’ll hear these primordial sounds getting louder until they completely envelop you and you feel this physical presence bearing down on you. I’m fascinated by the “scared white man in the forest” experience.

Have you seen Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man?

Yes, I loved it. I think there’s something theatrical about both Troy and Timothy Treadwell. They’re both sort of addressing something bigger than the bears. Troy said his grizzlies were tougher than Treadwell’s, though. “His are a lot better fed,” were his exact words.

Why does Stephen Colbert hate bears so much?

I don’t know – maybe it makes him feel safer in a dangerous world? For me, I’m in awe of them. The grizzly is under siege by man. It’s the bear that needs the suit.

How does it feel to know your film is still so popular?

It’s surreal, but also affirming. It makes me feel alive in the world to know I created something that really resonates with people.

Project Grizzly screens Fri 9 at 6:30pm at New Center Cinema.

MONUMENTAL MOMENT
A playful approach to Tatlin’s Monument

By Aileen Torres

When I heard the title of Flux Factory’s latest show, Response to Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International Conceived in the Mood of Ambivalence, or R.T.T.M.T.T.T.I.C.I.T.M.O.A. for short, I thought I was going off to see a ridiculous, pretentious show full of highfalutin communist propaganda. I’m happy to report that I was completely wrong.

Out there in Long Island City’s industrial outskirts, I came upon an exhibit that was cerebral and ideological in premise yet still wildly playful. Very clever. But also very fun.

First, a bit of history: Tatlin’s Tower was designed by Vladimir Tatlin as an architectural homage to the Third International (1919-1943). In the vein of Constructivism, it was to house bureaucrats as well as an information center that was to churn out communist propaganda for widespread broadcasting. A grand idea from a grand idealist, but the tower, which Tatlin envisioned as overshadowing the Eiffel Tower in height, was never built because of exorbitant building costs and unsolved engineering puzzles in Tatlin’s design.

Flux approached Tatlin’s Tower from an artistic, collaborative perspective. Putting their heads together, they asked: “What would Tatlin’s Tower be like if it was an ongoing construction in a 1,500-square-foot room with 12-foot ceilings and was designed to be a nice place to spend a day in?”

The result is a pretty cool hangout. A structure made of thin wood slats held together with only rope is suspended across the room; the idea being that this is what it would look like if Tatlin’s Tower fell over into the space outside, says Flux co-founder Morgan Meis. There’s also a helix hanging by one wall; one of the few concrete references to Tatlin’s original design.

All sorts of goodies are nestled in the space. There’s a love seat by the windows, where people can pick up sheets of lyrics to love songs from the table beside it and broadcast their own readings (or performances) via a dangling microphone. And yes, your voice will be heard- the microphones around the room are all connected to a streaming Internet radio station.

If you’re hungry, stop by the soup counter. Just wait your turn, and you’ll get real soup. And even ice cream, if you want it. If you start to feel a food coma coming on, head for the hammock, complete with pillows. Feel free to nap away. Or, if you’re feeling feisty, take a turn on the swing set in the corner. For the more dramatic, there’s a chance to show off your skills in a small theater alongside one wall designed for one-act plays.

And no need to worry that playing with all these props might be “corrupting” you. This art is meant to be experienced – not ingested as a throwback to Comintern “truth.”

Through Dec. 22. Flux Factory, 38-38 43rd St., Long Island City, Queens, 718-707-3362, Sat. 5:30-9:30.

PERMANENT LINK

DAZED & CONFUSED
September 2006 Issue *41

Flux Factory, a combination living space/art gallery housed in a warehouse in Queens, is located far enough from the worn hipster pathways of Manhattan and Brooklyn that Hopstopping directions to my cell phone is a necessity. Despite my foresight, I still end up lost in 100-degree heat, wandering around the industrial wasteland that is Long Island City.

When I finally arrive, after a pit stop at Hess (for water and Chex Mix, but not directions), I’m greeted by a shirtless man in his late twenties or early thirties who is wearing a necklace made from rope, tape and two Sharpies. Later, I will learn that his name is Brian Matthews. He is the “mad scientist of the house” and his room is too messy for me to see. Now, however, he simply invites me in, asks who I am and proceeds to call my contact on his cell phone. “Hey Stefany, are you at the house?” he asks. I gather that this is how people communicate in the 7,500 square foot space and wonder what the group did before the invention of cell phones. Perhaps there was a series of tin cans and tangled wires running to and fro.

Stefany Anne Goldberg is stuck at work, but Kerry Downey, a resident of Flux for the last two and a half years, offers to speak with me. We retire to the only place in the building with air conditioning, a jerry-rigged 10′ x 10′ room that is walled on two sides by a drop cloth hung three feet below the ceiling. There’s still some debate among the house members as to whether this actually contains the cool air, even though earlier that day Matthews used his new instant thermometer to prove it was cooler and spread the news by e-mail to the house’s 17 live-in members.

This huge number of residents is what makes Flux Factory, well, so in “flux.” The project, however, hasn’t always been so large. It began in 1994 in an old Williamsburg spice factory. By 1998, the group gained official 501 (c)(3) nonprofit status and moved to its current location. Today, the collective curates four shows per year, a requirement for the grants that help fund the project. The shows are created by multiple artists functioning as a unit to build a work greater than the sum of its parts. The day I visit, a handmade city featuring buildings built by 15 artists stands in the gallery. Called Opolis, it’s the “the third manifestation of Flux Factory’s annual ‘Comix Fluxture’ exhibit” which seeks to “create comic narratives that also function as installation art.” The previous show, Flux Box, featured seven kinetic sound sculptures that played a music box song when the viewer turned a crank.

While Goldberg and a few others have lived at Flux since its inception, others have been there for shorter periods. According to Downey, this is both a blessing and a curse. “It’s kind of a push and pull. The people who started it are trying to build based on a common goal and future plans,” while new people add energy and vitality. Sometimes, however, “people move in and don’t do anything at all.” The group lives as a social collective where everyone is responsible for cleaning the house, building the art exhibitions and other tasks. When new or old roommates don’t pull their own weight, the system fails.

This living situation is just as experimental as the shows they curate. “You can see how people that you love and with whom you share ideals can ruin the whole world because they can’t wash a dish.you start to understand why the world turns to shit,” Downey explains.

A tour of the space is as impressive, insane and totally overwhelming as is meeting all the roommates. Aside from the gallery, the floor includes 17 bedrooms, a kitchen, two bathrooms and an overflowing craft space that resembles a kindergarten room on crack. A library filled with hundreds of books has evolved over the years. “At one point, we had four copies of The Shipping News, my tour guide admits proudly, although only two currently grace the shelves. The collection is the kind of place where you find Dave Barry’s Guide to Life next to a detailed academic breakdown of surrealist artist Man Ray’s work. The “executive wing” of Flux is named so because it has its own door. Glamorous moniker aside, “it’s just art storage and a crapper. Oh, and the cats live here too.”

Even the bedrooms are in a state of constant transition. Improvement, additions or projects started by one resident are often completed by the next patron, giving the whole place a never-finished feeling. No one seems to mind. One resident, Nick Normal, has begun his own gallery in his bedroom that he calls Normal Space @ the Flux Factory. Occasionally, people will show up on the warehouse doorstep looking for exhibits at Normal Space. His fellow roommates find this incredibly amusing.

As Downey and I chat, Morgan Meis, Flux Factory’s “driving force,” enters the makeshift room. He’s wearing a tucked in button up shirt, dress pants and shoes. In the chaos that is the collective, his dress seems absurdly overdone but Downey laughs it off, assuring me that “he dresses as pompously as possible all the time.”

As he is about to sit, he notices the newly hung drop cloth. “This is€¦um€¦interesting,” he remarks, surprisingly unfazed by the new addition to his home. “Yeah, it’s just a temporary solution to it being too fucking hot,” Downey explains with a competing level of blasé. I get the distinct impression that “improvements” of this nature are pretty standard happenings in a place that houses almost two baseball teams worth of exceptionally creative souls.

Once Meis takes a seat and starts vibing about the Factory, I can sense the contagiousness of his enthusiasm for the project. In the constant push and pull between the house and the art space, he functions as “the gallery’s cheerleader,” who is willing to curate any show at the expense of his fellow residents’ comfort. Others are the liaisons between the house and the gallery. Balancing the needs of the house versus those of the gallery is a consistent source of difficulty, but the group takes it in stride.

In addition to these routine concerns, the Fluxers are currently dealing with a potentially pressing problem. The MTA is tearing the block down and, while it has yet to purchase the building which houses the Factory, reality dictates that it’s only a matter of time before the cooperative must find a new home. Future plans are, as usual, in flux. Rest assured that they will find a new space and continue to make great art while living the crazy life they’ve carved out for themselves. If you get a chance, you should visit before the warehouse becomes another casualty of “progress.” But when you do, make sure to bring a cell phone.

C. EDWARDS
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

On the corner of Broadway and Jay Street a paranoid loner wanders an office complex at night; across town, on Rue de Poire, Julia Child is born and dies at the age of 92. Meanwhile, on Aggravation Alley, Nadia Comaneci and a group of costumed bunnies drift through heaven, hell and Eastern Europe. Welcome to the city of Opolis, the product of the third annual manifestation of Flux Factory’s Comix Fluxture exhibit in which 15 separate artists put their creative spin on a city block for the fictional metropolis: a blending of sequential art and architecture that combines the spectacle of installation art, with the intimacy of the comic narrative.

As expected, the results are as mixed as the artists themselves: Ian Montgomery’s forgotten row house stares up at Daupo’s Terminal Tower, crude but carefully rendered comic images covering its expansive sides. Beth Brandon’s library, with dreamlike tales of its own, overlooks the J.B. Liminal Park, a landscape architecture installation crafted by Nicole Tucker with suspended wooden structures nearby that house the city’s Futurological Society (a work by Leah Beeferman and Michelle Higa).

In his book, Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud defines the word “closure” as something that occurs in the margins between the panels of a comic book’s imagery, where human imagination takes separate images and translates them into a single idea. Comix Fluxture is built on closure, each installation able to carry multiple narratives, all of which come together to tell the story of Opolis itself; a tale that has as its most common element a lack of regard for time, seasons and reality. But whether or not each individual piece allows us to mentally construct a unified reality is debatable.

Rarely do you find a group exhibition that isn’t hit or miss, and Opolis is no exception. Very few of the artists have any real capacity for blending the sequential art with architecture to the level that the theme of the show implies, most just seem to give in to the idea of windows as comic panels or cryptic dioramas. Since there’s no real consideration for the perimeters of the gallery space, the entire show feels contained, and while most of the artwork will hold your interest, you probably won’t feel the need to re-visit anytime soon.

Opolis: a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Through Aug. 5. Flux Factory, 38-38 43rd St., Long Island City, Queens, 718-707-3362; Fri. 4-7, Sat. 12-5, Free.

Volume 19, Issue 28

© 2006 New York Press

07/06/2006
Flux Factory Breathes Life Into Mini City
by Farida Hariyanawala
Peering inside each window of “November House” to see a dream sequence played out frame by frame is one of the many sites in the Flux Factory.

It’s fall in the city of Opolis. Natasha is taking a leisurely walk in the J.B. Liminal Park. She’s the same cold blooded assassin who publicly shot the president in the interior of a theater. A few blocks away, Leslie, the paranoid loner, lurks in the dark shadows of his office, while not far away, Mr Macomber wakes up with a hole in his chest.
Like most vibrant cities, myriad scenes are being played out simultaneously in Opolis, which, though imaginary, has come to life in a comic art installation at the Flux Factory in Long Island City.
The third in the series of the factory’s annual Comic Fluxture exhibits, Opolis was created by 14 participating artists serving as the “chief architects” of the city. They also imagined and created the characters who inhabit this city, and wove around them tales of devious machinations, mystery, drama and romance – all in comic art form.
Comic illustrator Jason Little, who is curating the show along with Jean Barberis and Flux Factory President Morgan Meis, said they brainstormed on a formal theme to give structure to a series of images. “Though each of the blocks is different in terms of ideas and presentation, the overall picture is still inclusive. The only real linkage is that there are a few common characters around a lot of blocks,” he said.
Before stepping into this cardboard city’s zone, visitors can pick up a souvenir map and guide, which helps navigate the streets, with names like Languid Lane, Fascination Street, Terminal Avenue and Aggravation Alley.
As you walk around peeking into the lives of the city’s residents, and eavesdropping on their conversations, Opolis comes alive. You grow to love its quirky characters with their bizarre stories that unfold in the 14 blocks.
“Opolis has an air of sadness around it,” said Daupo, an illustrator and comic artist, who undertook building the tallest structure in Opolis. The end result was the Opolis Terminal Tower, the city’s only skyscraper. It is covered with comic strips that tell the story of an evil character in a multinational corporation in the building.
“The city has a lot of interesting variety – you have urban, modern buildings as well as conventional ones, but there seems to be a lot of death and tragedy unfolding in them,” he said.
Manhattan based Nicole Tucker, a landscape architect and artist, sees Opolis as a city of “indiscriminate seasonality,” so her contribution was a public park depicting all seasons simultaneously, one on each of four tiers. Reality blends here with the imaginary, as the fictional characters can be seen walking through three of the four seasons.
“What I like about Opolis is that everything is so different. It is so reminiscent of a real city where you have so much diversity all rubbing against each other,” she said.
For Brooklyn based Bishakh Som, this exhibit was the perfect opportunity to blend his two professions – architecture and comic illustrations. On the city’s border stands his three story conventional town house. Inside, the young protagonist Natasha is subjected to domestic trauma.
The story unfolds that years later, Natasha will assassinate the president in a theater – her ultimate revenge on authority figures. “Everyone aspires to be part of a family, but I wanted to show the flip side of it,” Som said.
Other interesting landmarks worth visiting in the city include the Historical and Futurological Society by artists Leah Beeferman and Michelle Higa, the public library by Beth Brandon, and Andrea Dezso’s November House, representing a dream sequence.
Yet the charm of Opolis lies not in its cardboard buildings, but in the many stories hidden in its underbelly, which should best be explored at leisure.
Opolis: A Comic Fluxture is on view at the Flux Factory, 38 38 43rd St., Long Island City, through Aug. 5. Hours are 4 7 p.m. Saturdays, noon 5 p.m. Sundays, or by appointment at (718) 707 3362. www.fluxfactory.org.

FluxBox: Exploding the Miniature
by Bethany Ryker

Drawing by Stefany Anne Goldberg

The crank on the side of a wind-up toy or a music box is not just a mechanical device that sets things in motion; it is a generator of suspense. You give it a few turns and the tension mounts. When you get to the point where you can’t wind any further, you let go and wait through an expectant pause until – snap! – the magic begins.

The FluxBox, which was on view at the Flux Factory in Queens from March 25 to April 29, triggered a greater feeling of suspense than your everyday automata. Not because it was a room-sized version of something that usually fits in your hand, but because the only visible part of the box from the entrance was the crank, and the crank was wired to a kosher pickle.

I knew to expect a “giant, interactive music box” – the collaborative handiwork of seven visual/sound artists whose individual “kinetic sculptures” were linked together to play a song. I imagined something like a Rube Goldberg-esque jukebox. But I was thrown off by the lab-experiment/corner-deli aspect of the crank (created/conceived by James Rouvelle). If this is on the outside, then what is on the inside?

The only way to find out was to crank the pickle. Unlike a mechanical system of gears, the crank turned without much friction. My memories of sixth grade science class were kicking in: “Ah, yes, the crank is generating the electricity – the kind that keeps a potato-clock ticking – and this will start the action.” So my last few turns of the crank slowed down, not for lack of capacity, but out of fear that this pickle I was charging up was going to explode.

Then the suspense. First, a couple of clicks and then the box started up like the sonic equivalent of a calliope piping away from inside a construction site. A distinct melody soared through the texture, but equally prevalent were thick rhythmic layers of mechanical sounds – the audible by-products of the melody.

Once inside the maze of small rooms, the sounds came alive, often with a sly gesture. The most fascinating instrumental “performances” came from Ranjit Bhatnagar’s suspended accordion, which played when its bellows were raised and lowered by pulleys, and John Roach’s toy organ, which remained silent until the pointed finger of a slowly descending hand struck a single key.

As a whole, FluxBox brought out a whimsical curiosity for those inside of it. We ducked under and around things to scout out certain sounds and see how they were being made. Sometimes our path was guided by sight, other times by sound, but either way it was a colossal feeling to be encompassed by the structure of its sounds.

This explosion of miniature onto a grand scale distills down to one melody: the “Tea Cup Song” written by Stefany Anne Goldberg, executive director of the Flux Factory and director of the FluxBox project. In conceiving the piece, Goldberg first gathered the artists who would work together, and then they were to make the collective decision of what the FluxBox should play. Goldberg was looking for something “compact, melodically identifiable, and easily repeated,” but wanted to leave territory open in terms of original music or covers.

John Roach circulated some ideas from his music collection on a CD-R that became known as “Flux for Thought,” but in the end, they decided on one of Goldberg’s original melodies from a separate installation. In that piece, the song functioned mechanically: Goldberg had her tune manufactured into music-box parts that she affixed to teacups.

The counterpart to the suspenseful onset of a mechanical work is the gradual decay. As the FluxBox metaphorically “wound down” you found yourself inside of it, dark and quiet, until someone would shout “Pickle!” and after a shuffling of footsteps, the box would come alive again.

As it turns out, the pickle’s only function was cleverness. The sound devices inside the FluxBox were triggered through the program Max/MSP… by a computer that was kept out of sight. The speed and length of time that someone cranked the pickle determined how fast and how long the FluxBox would play, but the electrical current came straight from the wall. Did this trick take away any of the magic? Not at all; it gave the box its flux-colored lining.

About the Author

Bethany Ryker is a writer and musician living in Brooklyn. Her radio program, “The Stochastic Hit Parade,” airs weekly on WFMU. She is currently completing a masters thesis at The New School for Social Research on the aesthetics of mechanical music in the digital age.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Fluxbox

A look at a sound installation in Queens known as Fluxbox.

click to listen

issue of 2006-04-24
Posted 2006-04-17
(link)

“FLUXBOX”
Flux Factory offers a taste of authentic contemporary bohemianism, with a collective of seventeen-odd artists living in a warrenlike loft near the railroad tracks (and next to a Korean mega-church) and creating work together. The current project, “FluxBox,” is a room-size music box that uses homemade and found instruments – everything from an old boot striking wood to an accordion suspended from the ceiling – to tinkle, wheeze, and bellow out versions of one simple tune (written by the project’s organizer, Stefany Anne Golberg). The effect is somewhere between Kurt Schwitters’s Merzbau and Tim Hawkinson’s sculptural constructions, without the novelty of Schwitters’s found objects or the artless sophistication of Hawkinson’s machines. Through April 29. (Flux Factory, 38-38 43rd St., Long Island City. 718-707-3362.)

L.I.C. art show
is dill-harmonic

BY CAITLIN KELLY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

It starts with – what else? – an electric pickle. A giant dill, replaced daily, contains enough salt converted into electrical impulses to power a roomful of funky, homemade musical instruments.

The dill is the opening act for Fluxbox, an art exhibition open until Saturday at the Flux Factory, a six-year-old artists’ collective in Long Island City.

Their 2,000-square-foot gallery at the end of a row of factories is a long way, physically and intellectually, from the powerhouse commercial art scene of Chelsea or SoHo. Those silent, white-walled spaces have prices, if you dare ask for them, that quickly run into five or six figures.

For the 15 members of Fluxbox, most in their 20s and 30s, art is something to share with everyone – the more fun, down to earth and thought-provoking the better.

“We’re trying to create collaborative works that are accessible to a broad public, for people who aren’t schooled in art,” says Morgan Mies, 33, one of the group’s co-founders. Although Mies has a Ph.D. in philosophy and his wife, co-founder Stefany Anne Golberg, 32, has a master’s degree in music and sound, their unpretentious exhibitions draw a wide range of visitors from New York and overseas.

The current show, created by nine artists, uses a 16-bar piece of Golberg’s music looped through a computer. Unlike most exhibits, viewer participation makes it run, beginning with a crank that uses pickle power to start up all the other instruments. As long as there’s power, the music plays and the lights stay on. There’s a glockenspiel “played” from underneath by puffs of air, accompanied by a red Christmas ornament pounding a drum.

As visitors move through the show, they hear, and make, dozens of unusual sounds. A worn leather boot kicks a wooden board. A bottle cap taps a cigar tube and a sardine can filled with toothpicks becomes a minimaraca. A safety pin acts as a record needle to keep an LP of birdsong playing in the background. The group, now a registered, nonprofit organization, receives funding from the state Department of Cultural Affairs and the Queens Council for the Arts. A recent auction raised an additional $20,000.

But, like the ever-changing space itself, the Flux Factory has become temporary as Mies and Golberg seek an arts-minded developer with deep pockets to build a new one.

They’re doing so because within two years, plans call for the former air-conditioning factory, with its spectacular views of Manhattan, to be torn down to make way for a new Long Island Rail Road station.

Flux Factory co-founders Morgan Mies (l.) and his wife, Stefany Anne Golberg, with Flux Factory resident artist Jean Barberis.

Originally published on April 25, 2006