By Chris Evangelista   |   Aug 20, 2010

It was a sunny Saturday morning when Julia Vallera invited me to take part in a community-based art installation called Color Wheelz at Murray Playground in Long Island City. She was accompanied by Nick Normal from Flux Factory. Behind them was a white 1997 Ford van with colorful swirls throughout, and in front of them was a table filled with the necessary art materials. So, what is Color Wheelz exactly?

It’s a not-for-profit project that illustrator Julia Vallera started as a MFA thesis at Parsons School of Design. She hopes to showcase culture through the local resident’s perspective, and provides materials—such as felt, fabric and vinyl—in various colors. “I want people to tell their story or how they see their community through color,” Vallera said. Color Wheelz invites everyone to share their perspective by posting their art work on the van, followed by a video recording of people explaining the inspiration of their work (my colors were black, different hues of blue and bright summer colors in the shape of the city view from LIC’s Gantry Park).

With the help of Flux Factory, an arts organization “supporting innovation in things,” Julia Vallera is able to advertise Color Wheelz. It hasn’t been long, but the project has been well accepted by everyone; some 60 people participate every time. It’s impossible to miss because Normal places colorful triangles leading to the van. Many are intrigued and ask questions, but some, like the elderly man who participated with me, reminisce about the glory days and how much the community has changed through the years. Color Wheelz hopes to explore many other communities in New York City.

For more information about Flux Factory and Color Wheelz, please click here.

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.

Tickets for Margaret Coleman’s August 28 tour, Demonstrations of Aptitude, are very sold out!

Flux Factory, in collaboration with artist Julia Vallera (MFA Parsons), would like to present Long Island City with Julia’s Color Wheelz project. Color Wheelz is designed to transform a 1997 Ford van into a traveling, participatory installation. This van travels through the five boroughs of NYC filled with playful activities, which facilitate exploration into how color relates to community. Visitors at each destination adapt the inside and outside of the van using an array of color-related items. These items include glowing neon wire, cling paper, velcro shapes, magnets and fabric.

The Color Wheelz van will be parked at the John F. Murray Playground on 21 Street between 45 Ave and 45 Road (map) on Saturday August 14th from 11am to 5pm – JOIN US as we visually craft Long Island City!

this project is a collabo between Nick Normal (Flux Factory) and Julia Vallera.

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.

Greenpoint’s 1st Annual Human Chess-to-the-Death Match
Saturday, July 31, 3 pm
@ The School of the Future, Dougherty Park

Sarah Tosques is a curious girl interested in every little thing the world has to offer. She uses various media, including performance, video, collage, (and any other thing she can get her hands on) to ask questions about anything and everything with a smile and a song. Sarah is also an art educator, and tries to incorporate teaching into her personal practice.

Since graduating with a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal in 2008, she now teaches in Montreal during the school year (where she’s been told that she is “cooler than Hanna Montana”), and then (poorly) packs a suitcase and goes where the wind takes her, (last year it blew to Texas and to Iceland, where she participated in 2 other residencies).

Kate Shaw was born in Sydney, Australia. She has been included in group exhibitions in Australia, Japan, China, France, England and the US, and solo exhibitions in Australia and New York.  She has received numerous grants and been short listed for prizes. In 2009 she worked at 3rd Ward, Brooklyn and held a solo exhibition at 212 Projects, Lower East Side, 2010 and has exhibited with Stephan Stoyanov Gallery in 2006. This year she has been awarded a public art commission with the internationally renowned Urban Art Projects which will be launched in Brisbane in May 2010

In 2008, after a five years collaboration with artist Matteo Mascheroni, as Santomatteo , Santo began working independently. With interventions ranging from video, photography, installation and sculpture, his practice is an overall attempt to trace the path from mental construct to signification, from scheme to realization, thus becoming the opposite of abstraction.

As part of Flux Factory’s “Going Places (Doing Stuff) III,” urban explorers Moses Gates and Steve Duncan will present adventures from far-off Paris.

Though it’s known as the “City of Light,” there are 170 miles of absolute darkness that exist under the city– a network of limestone quarries dotted with WWII bunkers, ossuaries, unofficial art galleries, and other assorted surprises colloquially known as “The Catacombs.” It is home to a subculture of people of all ages, interests, and nationalities who make a hobby of exploring and utilizing these and other hidden spaces throughout Paris – the “Cataphiles.”

Moses Gates and Steve Duncan will be covering the history, culture, and structures of this underground world in a slideshow presentation, as well as explaining how you, too, can become a Cataphile.

Thursday, July 15th at 8:00pm
Flux Factory, 39-31 29th Street, Long Island City, NY 11101
Free and open to all

NYC’s most interesting residency program is now accepting applications for residencies beginning this fall!

Flux Factory is part of LUMEN, an international video art and projection festival in Staten Island!   Visit Atlantic Salt on Saturday, June 26 and see video art by Fluxers Man Bartlett, Jaime Iglehart, Elizabeth Larison, and Kate Shaw.

“LUMEN is a cutting-edge video art and projection festival featuring site-specific video installations, 3D-video technology, sound-based performances, and art interventions by artists around the globe. Featuring work by emerging Staten Island artists, as well as established video, new media, projection, and animation artists from New York City and beyond, LUMEN will highlight a diversity of artists at the forefront of their media in an industrial landscape on Staten Island’s waterfront.”

Presented by the Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island.

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.

JULY 6, 13, 20, 27

Every Tuesday in July, visit Flux Factory for an informal rooftop film screening of an unknown science fiction movie.

No, you won’t know what you’re about to watch. Yes, you will be rewarded.

Some keywords to describe the movies you might see include:
androids, cypher, alliance, sexbots, meteor, singularity, terraforming, colony, cyberpunk, vessel, Y2K – and more!

The movie might be campy, or surreal, or simply awesome – but they’ll ALL be SCI-FI!

All movies are FREE and open to the public.
Doors at 8; film at 9. Bring potluck and be merry with friends.
Rain or hellfire – we can always watch the films indoors!

…

Sci-Fi July is conceived, organized and produced by Nick Normal

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.

Superhero Clubhouse is a New York based, green theater collective whose mission is to create original plays and events relevant to the natural world via a sustainable and collaborative process.  MERCURY is a play about poison:  specifically, the toxic hatting industry centered in Danbury, CT in the late 18th century.  Inspired by this still-present history in Danbury and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland stories, MERCURY is a dark and wild romp of tea parties, tap dancing, and toxicity.

Additional information about the show and our company can be found on our website at www.superheroclubhouse.org.

When Flux Factory is involved, however, there’s nothing geeky about grade school. – The Q Note

Flux Factory is calling all artists, urban explorers, rogue historians, tour guides, academics, and anyone interested to pitch tours for Going Places (Doing Stuff) III, a social practice oriented show taking place this summer.

Going Places (Doing Stuff) — you get on a bus, you don’t know where you’re going, and then something happens. Flux Factory invites artists to lead a bus-full of people on an adventure around the greater New York (or even Tri-State area) carte blanche. The content of the tours is entirely up to you, though the itinerary is kept secret from participants. Tours can range from a single afternoon to three days, and will take place from late June through August.

Each touree is given only the following information: artist, title, duration, and a list of needed supplies. In other words, when someone signs up for a tour, they know what to bring and how long they will be gone, but they will have no idea where they are actually going or what they will experience. All tours will be first-come first-serve.

There is always mystery in traveling, even if you know where you are headed. Going Places (Doing Stuff) is all about this mystery, asking the general public to give themselves over to our artists. The excitement of simply stepping on a bus to who-knows-where becomes a metaphor and catalyst for the leap of faith inherent to aesthetic experience in general.

For info on past tours, please visit:

For press on past tours, please visit:

http://www.nypress.com/article-20170-gut-instinct-holy-moses.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTH-UsiiOQo

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

http://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2008/09/lost-in-hudson-river-vol-74-bannermans.html

Proposals should include:

-A brief letter explaining your motivation for taking part in this show. (300 words Maximum. Please title your document in this format: LAST NAME_FIRST NAME_LETTER.DOC or .RTF)

-An itinerary, time line, and budget for the tour

-Resumé or bio (Maximum 2 pages. Titled LAST NAME_FIRST NAME_BIO.DOC or .RTF)

The deadline is Monday, April 26th, 2010.

The call for proposals is closed!

Have a project you’ve been wanting to print? Or know someone who needs t-shirts/posters/business cards? Come through this Saturday at 2pm to find out more about how we can work together! Bring friends, family, and your extended network.

Give us a call when you get to Flux and we will come let you in!
516-633-6894

+ BreadandButterCollective.com

+ FredericksandMae.com

+ PangaeaCorps.net

[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.

Opening Reception: Friday, April 2nd, 6-9pm
Gallery Hours: Saturdays and Sundays, 12-3pm and by appointment, through April 11th

Flux Factory presents Systema Mundi, an exhibition of drawings, installation and pyrography by artist-in-residence Man Bartlett.

The works in this show include a “circle drawing” in which thousands of small circles are tightly clustered, and form a rectangle. From a distance it appears as a solid mass, but closer inspection reveals a chaotic yet ordered composition. A pyrography piece consists of small burned dots that appear to create or mimic the pattern of the grain of the wood beneath them. In opposition to these maximalist tendencies lies a minimalist earth and water installation, sourced from in and around the Flux Factory building.

This juxtaposition of means is of critical interest to the artist, whose work often deals with the union of paradoxes from within a wide spectrum of art history and human experience.

A multi-disciplinary artist known for minimalist installations and duration performances, Bartlett most recently created a 24-hour group performance event for the show #class at Winkleman Gallery. His work has been written about on Hyperallergic, James Wagner, theartblog, and Art Fag City. He received a BA in Theatre from Emerson College in 2003, and is the son of artist Bo Bartlett. This is his first solo show in New York.

We’ve commissioned 15 limited edition box sets of prints, sculptures, drawings, and paintings by a stellar selection of wonderful artists.   Our boxes are handmade and contain works by Brandstifter, Bread & Butter Collective, Andrea Dezsö, Kerry Downey, Heather Jones, Aya Kakeda, Miwa Koizumi, Simone Meltesen, Nick Normal, Ward Shelley, and Swoon.  The collection is curated by Flux Factory’s artistic director, Jean Barberis.  Priced at $1500 per box, it’s probably the best deal ever.

Sky Is Not Heaven
Recycled tin, 6 x 6”
Stefan Brandstifter was born 1968 in Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatine, Germany. The Head of Mainzer Kunstverein Walpodenstraße, Stefan is an interdisciplinary artist and networker, transforming his visual and performance art, sound and music as well as lyrics by means of social interaction to intermedia.

Untitled
Silkscreen on paper, 11 x 9.5”
The Bread and Butter Collective is a small collectively owned and operated silkscreening studio based at Flux Factory, dedicated to earning their daily bread while creating a space to enjoy life’s butter: community, progressive change, and creative process.

View from the Roof
Silkscreen on paper, 11 x 15”
Andrea Dezsö, a visual artist and writer, creates deeply personal narratives across a broad range of media including drawing, artist’s books, cut paper, embroidery, sculpture, installation, animation, and large-scale murals.

History of 39-31 29th Street, LIC, NY
Silkscreen on paper, 30 x 12”
Aya Kakeda was born and raised in Tokyo Japan.  She now works and lives in Brooklyn, New York.  She likes cats, seals , and receiving postcards and she has ever changing weekly obsessions, now it’s Clavariaceae and star nosed mole.  She also elaborates lots of theories about lot of things. When she doesn’t indulge in her obsessions she paints and draws, creating her own whimsical narratives.

A Dozen Eggs Dropped on the Ground
Charcoal on paper, 14.5 x 16”
Heather Jones holds a BFA in Painting and Drawing. Previous projects include Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea at Deitch Projects and Sol Lewitt Retrospective at MASSMoCA.

Everybody Loves Conduit
Silkscreen on recycled insulation, 8.5 x 11”
Kerry Downey was born in sunny South Florida in 1979.  She graduated from Bard College in 2002 and is an MFA candidate at Hunter College making mixed media installations out of New York City detritus, book works, prints, and the like.  She has been member of nonprofit artist collective Flux Factory since 2003, where she curated the What the Book?, NOVEL, and worked on various other shows and projects.  Kerry is currently working as a freelance educator at MoMA.

Jellyfish
Recycled plastic, dimensions variable
Miwa Koizumi was born in Japan.  She studied at Ecole de Beaux Artes de Paris.  Her shows include Oct Making a Home: Japanese Contemporary Artists in New York at the Japan Society in New York City.  Koizumi has been collaborating with Flux Factory for three years.

Soft Flux
Sewn felt, 4 x 2.5 x 5”
Simone Meltesen’s work consists of series of portable soft sculpture objects photographed in different environments, as well as a series of embroideries and drawings of a group of young feral girls who live by the sea and constitute a self-sufficient society. Her choice of materials and techniques, particularly thread, cloth, and embroidery, was initially inspired by work made by women in the 1970s during the Feminist Art movement. Her small, portable sculptures made of soft materials, embodying domestic themes, challenge the traditionally monolithic nature of sculpture in the western world.

Hecho con Precision
Cardboard and staples, approximately 5 x 1 x 3”
Born-n-bred in St. Louis, Missouri, Nick Normal pursued his undergraduate degree overseas at Central St. Martin’s College of Art & Design (London, UK) where he graduated with ‘honours’ in Fine Arts. With a firm approach to working with whatever he can get his hands and mind on, Nick enjoys making scale models, maquettes and installations and buying dollar-store items to integrate into his surroundings – that is, both his life and his work. He is also a lifelong biblioholic, which has recently turned into assembling an ‘expansive library’ of cardboard books. Nick is also building an archive of press releases, postcards, flyers, brochures, etc. related to art exhibitions – in progress now since November 2003, it is estimated at 11,000 individual items and spans a plethora of three-ring binders and milk-crates (an archive of archives).

Untitled
Silkscreen on vellum, 18 x 12”
Ward Shelley works as an artist in Brooklyn, New York. He specializes in large projects that freely mix sculpture and performance. Utilizing eclectic influences and a variety of media, Shelley’s installations defy classification. Over the last five years, Shelley has concentrated on bizarre functioning architectural pieces in which he lives and works during the exhibition monitored with live surveillance video equipment.  Shelley also works on a series of diagramatic paintings, timelines of art-related subjects such as the careers of artists working in de-materialized media and the history of art scenes.

Ward Shelley’s work is in a number of museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Art Museum, and The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Last year Shelley received a painting and Sculpture award from the Joan Mitchell foundation, and has been a fellow of the American Academy in Rome since 2006. He has received NYFA and NEA fellowships in sculpture and new media categories, a Bessie Award for installation art, as well as private foundation grants from the Jerome Foundation and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. He is represented by Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn, New York.

Untitled
Silkscreen on paper, 11.5 x 8”
Swoon is a Brooklyn-based street artist who creates life-sized portraits of people she meets, using woodcut block prints and paper cutouts. Swoon’s galleries are city walls, often in the environments that inspired the prints. She is an international artist with major pieces in the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

2009 was a milestone year for Flux Factory. After hundreds of people wouldn’t let us shut our doors in 2008 as our building was claimed for a public works project, we took it as a necessary growth opportunity and renovated an old warehouse in Long Island City, Queens. The building is bigger, more centrally located, and has a gallery that gives us lots of room to promote the work of emerging artists.

Thanks to our broad community, dozens of volunteers helped us for months to breathe life into this new building, painting walls, setting up spaces, putting up lights, and all the glorious work that comes with rejuvenating buildings. But there was one thing we couldn’t do ourselves — get a proper HEATING SYSTEM. Ours was old and barely functioned, so we hired the extremely sweet Fire and Ice Heating and Cooling Company to get us through the winter. What would have cost us over $150,000 is now costing us a fraction, but it’s still too rich for our blood. Your dollars would go directly to fostering a creative community that works for itself and helps others along the way.

We even made an awesome little video explaining our plight! Yes, we’re only a few weeks shy of the arrival of spring. We’re definitely through the thick of winter, but as there are more winters to come, this is a long term investment!

There is no minimum, and donating is easy. Here’s how it works:
1) Go to our Kickstarter page (or click on the image): http://kck.st/bUplx9
2) Take a look at the rewards and see how much you’d be willing to donate. No matter how small, ALL donations are deeply appreciated.
3) Click on “Back This Project.”
4) Enter your amount and select your reward.
5) You will need to sign up with Kickstarter.com.
6) Enter your credit card info using a secure Amazon.com account.

If we don’t meet our goal in the end, you won’t get charged!

Please visit Kickstarter to donate now, and help us spread the word!

Flux Factory’s inaugural building-wide exhibition

on view every Saturday and Sunday 12 – 6 pm until March 21st.

Housebroken remains on view every Saturday and Sunday from 12 – 6 pm until March 21st.

Curated by Jean Barberis and Georgia Muenster

Participating artists: Carey Ascenzo; Ali Aschman; Man Bartlett; Ranjit Bhatnagar; David Bohl & David Kagan; Brandstifter; Adam Brent; Matt Bua; Paul Burn; Ian Burns; Lucille Calmel; Paula Castro; Cyprien Chabert; Gabriel Cohen & Megan Snowe; David Court & Carolyn Lambert; The Deterritorialized Church; Kerry Downey; Jason Eppink; Cassandra Ferland & Boyd Shropshire; Tracy Gilman, David Schleifer & Lauren Silberman; Nick Golebiewski & Marin Tockman; Eckart Graeve; Kathryn Hamilton; Amy Lynn Herman; Peter Hristoff; Thom Hutchison; Jaime Iglehart; Doreen Jakob; Anna Lise Jensen; Benjamin Johnson/BADSTUDIO & Hiroko Takeda; Darren Jones & Ryan Roa; Jack Kalish & Katie Westgate; Bernard Klevickas; George Kroenert; Sara Krugman; Elizabeth Larison & Jesse Novak; Fabienne Lasserre; Matt Levy; Michelle Levy; Amy Longenecker & Christopher Ulivo; Nelson Loskamp; Caroline Mak; Greg Martin; Lili Maya & James Rouvelle; Olive McKeon; Ian Montgomery; Martina Mrongovius; Georgia Muenster; Jo Q. Nelson; Nick Normal; Issa Nyaphaga; Adrian Owen; Molly Page; Clare Parry; Douglas Paulson; Damon Pelletier & Chess Venis; SKOTE; Brendan Ravenhill; Annie Reichert & Etosha Terryll; Rob Rhee; John Roach; Julius Schmeidel; Eugenia Semjonova; Igor Siddiqui; Terence Smith; Julia Solis; SP Weather Station; Jeff Stark; Josh Thorpe; Gabriela Vainsencher; Hein Verwer; Barbara Westermann; Meng-Hsuan Wu; Chin Chih Yang

It seems like just yesterday. In fact, it was the early ’90s. Grunge was au courant. A fresh-faced saxophonist from somewhere down South had just taken the White House. And you could still get large empty warehouse spaces in Williamsburg for next to nothing. We moved in without rooms or a toilet to piss in. Literally. We were pissing into a hole in the middle of the floor. I never did find out where that hole went. But it didn’t matter. Mystery was in the air. Only later did the art arrive. First mystery pissing, then art, I always say.

What did Flux Factory stand for back then? I don’t remember. But it stood, and that alone was an accomplishment. Stefany’s (Shuffy) mother visited us once in that first year. A few weeks later we received a large package in the mail. It was a box of fire alarms, extinguishers, and an escape ladder. The Braun Brothers built a music studio right in the middle of the space and recorded Negatones songs between 2:00 and 4:00 in the morning on most weekdays. Once, for reasons long forgotten, the landlord tried to brain me with a crowbar. He missed, and later we had tea.

Then the French arrived. Jean and Seb blew in on a cloud one day and said, “Let’s have a show.” But of course! Jean had been living on a planet of happy bubbles. He brought a suitcase of those bubbles to Brooklyn. Days later, the bastards blew up the towers and we moved to Queens. Stay ahead of the curve, we thought, stick to the margins. We were starting to feel a sense of confidence. Not one of us knew what anyone else was doing but sometimes we’d look at each other in the glow of late-night tinkering on a just-about-to-open show and we’d nod in the way that says, “Freedom, goddammit, just a little bit of frickin’ freedom.” We nominated Shuffy queen of the new art ship and continued to make things up as we went along. Our philosophy was tape and the ability for tape to hold fabric tunnels together. Our mantra was “Good Enough!” Our ethics were to let everyone talk until sheer exhaustion made us love each other. Has anyone ever had a better idea?

Just as Shuffy and I were petering out the Gods sent us a savior out of Israel via Toronto. This messiah we called “Chen”. Chen picked up the pieces and started things anew. She blew some dust on Jean’s happy bubbles, tweaked the gonogonatros and extra-invigorated the wingdingers. Thank Heaven. It’s a new era. But a lot is the same, too. A spirit of mystery and hole pissing has maintained itself all along.

God knows there are more important things in the world, but I will always love Flux Factory especially. One thing art does, at least, is to make sure that the actual world doesn’t get too grumpy and set in its ways. At Flux, we always figured out new ways. Usually, they were worse than the previous ways, but they were ours. We built a world together over the years. It took a long list of crazies and their unemployed friends to do it. But we built a world together. I will not ever forget that. And the story continues.

Love to all,

Morgan Meis, original Founder

OPENING FEB 19th, 8pm till late (click for info)

Thank you to our amazing volunteers!

Lamia Akar, Nicole Caruso, Sheila Donovan-Moore, Eileen Emond, Moses Gates, Justin Grotelueschen, Melanie Hegge, Charlotte Herzig, Elizabeth Larison, Carly Leibman, Karen Lynn Miller, Ian Montgomery, James O’Meara, Sarah Overholt, Michael Owen, Terence Smith, Damon Peletier, Sammy Phuntsog, Margaret Rosario, Tucker Sabath, Shalin Scupham, Christina Vassallo, Kerra Vick, Elizabeth White, and Lucy Yang.

Housebroken remains on view every Saturday and Sunday from 12 – 6 pm until March 21st.

Housebroken is made possible with public funds fromNew York State Council on the Arts,New York City Department of Cultural Affairs,
and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

We are grateful for the support of Campari,
Build It Green!, and Materials for the Arts

Science Fair will be a collaborative effort that examines science based projects and concepts through the lens of art. Artists will be encouraged to create their own Science Fair “booths” and experiments to be on display at the Fair. It is our hope to discover the potential for science as a breeding ground for art: a way to inform and inspire art as a springboard for creative thought.

The Fair will showcase several projects including a room of kinetic/robotic sculptures, a gallery-space-as-fish tank, an artist-run weather station, and homemade hot air balloons. Science Fair will also feature workshops and panel discussions with scientists, artists, and other professionals.

We invite you to apply with your best Hypotheses, Inventions, and Experiments.

Interested parties should submit:

-One paragraph explaining your project and its requirements (electrical, etc). 300 words maximum. Please title your document in this format: LAST NAME_FIRST NAME_LETTER.DOC or .RTF

-Documentation of previous work: Maximum 2 page PDF document or 5 JPEG images (72 dpi only)
Images should be titled: LAST NAME_FIRST NAME_IMAGE#
Or 5 minutes of video. Please do send movie files. Instead, include a link to your work online in the proposal paragraph.

-Resumé or bio, maximum 2 pages. Titled LAST NAME_FIRST NAME_BIO.DOC or .RTF

The deadline is Monday, April 12th.  Please put “Science Fair Proposal” as the subject of your email. And for goodness’ sake, put your name and email on everything.

Submissions should be sent to sciencefair@fluxfactory.org. If you have any questions, please send an email with “Science Fair Question” as the subject line.

Do not send original material. Nothing will be mailed back to you.

We’re looking forward to your proposals!!!

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.

This month’s Flux Thursday is on March 11th, from 8 pm on.

Come for the potluck dinner and performances, stay for the sheer awesomeness.

Works and performances by Elizabeth Larison, K. Olive McKeon, the Metric System, and S.L.Á.T.U.R.

Suggested donation, $15 (tax-deductible)
Open bar courtesy of Campari, 21+
Please rsvp to rsvp@fluxfactory.org

click here for our facebook event invite!

Join us on Friday, February 19th for Housebroken, Flux’s inaugural show! In celebration of our newest home, we’ve invited dozens upon dozens of artists to create works throughout the building. Housebroken is easily our biggest project ever, with over 100 installations, performances, and homey additions to our factory…. Eclectic performances and unparalleled reverie begin at 8 pm, continuing on into the night.

Housebroken will remain on view every Saturday and Sunday from 12 – 6 pm until March 21st.

click here for full project information.

On Goings, Happenings and Performances for Feb. 19th:

8:00 – 9:00 Nick Golebiewski & Marin Tockman Souper Ate dinner party and projection, kitchen

8:00 – 9:00 Adrian Owen: Arias in the Shower

9:00 – 9:30 Olive McKeon, Quiet raucous on the kitchen table

8:00 – 11:00 Nelson Loskamp: Electric chaircut, gallery annex

8:00 – 10:00 David & David perform Self Help Singing Sculpture, elp,gallery

10:00 – 10:30 White Limo rocking metal in the pit

10:30 – 2:00 DJ Taliesin and Mosholu Park with video art by NES.Avi

Throughout the evening:

Anna Lise Jensen: Conversation Piece in the library

Matt Levy: Action Misdirection, tours of the building. Find him.

Lucille Calmel: Intimate performance and screening in downstairs studio.

SKOTE: To grok (pronounced /ˈɡrɒk/) is to share the same reality or line of thinking with another physical or conceptual entity.

Tracy Gilman, David Schleifer & Lauren Silberman Make It Happen in the office

more info click here..

Housebroken is made possible with public funds from New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs,and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

We are grateful for the support of Campari, Build It Green!, and Materials for the Arts.

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.

http://manbartlett.com :: http://manbartlett.tumblr.com :: http://twitter.com/manbartlett

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

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

Opening Reception Dec 3rd, 6-9pm

Exhibition runs Dec 3rd – 8th, 2009
Open Hours: Saturday 12-6pm or by appointment
To schedule a viewing please call 718 707 3362

Flux Factory is proud to present a collaborative exhibition by Paula Castro and Cyprien Chabert.  Castro, a renowned Argentinian artist and member of Flux Factory’s international residency program, and French artist Chabert will create an installation and present drawings of geological wonders and fabricated landscapes to be accompanied by a small library of handmade books.  The exhibition includes a selection of books from Nick Normal’s “Expansive Library,” an ongoing collection of facsimile knowledge.

“Euclidean Space”

Opening Reception Dec 17th, 6-9pm
Exhibition runs Dec 17th – 27th, 2009
Open Hours: Saturday 12-6pm or by appointment
To schedule a viewing please call 718 707 3362

Anna So Young Han is a Korean artist and a member of Flux Factory’s international residency program. Her work straddles the line between painting and sculpture, creating magnificent visual experiences that reference op art and hard-edge abstraction.

www.andreadezso.com

http://www.breadandbuttercollective.com

The Bread and Butter Collective is a group of print makers dedicated to earning their daily bread while creating a space to enjoy life’s butter: community, progressive change, and creative process. We offer artists affordable access to silk-screening supplies, equipment, and work with both for-profit businesses and politically progressive organizations and individuals to create printed matter. With the studio as our base, collective members are able to support social change by subsidizing activists with money earned from commercial jobs. in this way, we are able to leverage our skills to earn a living while contributing to our community.