CR(I)SES AD(JUST)MENTS (COLLAPSED) focuses on the monstrous metaphors that were born out of The Great Depression of 1929 and those that have yet to arise from the 2008 Great Recession. In 1933, just four years after Black Thursday, King Kong became a popular icon in the historic birthplace of finance, simultaneously embodying the savage, the transgressive, and the monstrous.

Five years after the recent economic crisis, how do we connect the figure of the monster to contemporary life? What is its possible embodiment today? Using historical documents, in the creation of performance, drawings, and films, this exhibition is proposing to reactivate and short-circuit established narratives.

A book launch will accompany the opening reception. During her 6 month residency at Flux Factory, Christine Laquet invited different writers to contribute and reflect on her research: artists, performers, art critics and historians, curators, composers and collaboraters. The book includes contributions by Arnaud Gerspacher, Chennie Huang, Christine Laquet, Mille Højerslev Nielson, Robert Steijn, Julien Tarride and Julien Zerbone.

Inquiries about the exhibition or book orders can be made through this email address: souffle05@yahoo.fr

The artist would like to warmly thank Gérard Faroux and Alexandria Wailes, the book contributors, Pierre Camilien, Lena Hawkins, Constantin Hartenstein, Lara Hirzel and Stéphane Pauvret.

The exhibition and the book is made possible with the support of Flux Factory, The Regional Council of Pays de la Loire, Nantes City, and The French Institute. More information about the artist can be found here.

Image: To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard, 2013, Christine Laquet. Performance with Gerard Faroux and Alexandria Wailes.

First Session — SOLD OUT
Date + time: Sunday, May 26th, 6 – 9pm
Location: Flux Factory Gallery
Materials fee: $12

Second Session + Bike Tour
Date + time: Sunday, June 2nd, 1 – 6pm
Location: Start at Flux Factory Gallery & travel throughout western Queens
Materials fee: $5

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Bike is a two part educational workshop and a spectacular group bike ride through Western Queens. Participants will leave with a new independence in traveling and a strong, conceptual understanding of bicycle design.

The first workshop will focus on understanding the basic workings of a bicycle. Participants will get their hands dirty with the gritty mechanics of ball bearings (both sealed and loose), springs, cables, housing and tires, and will have gained a new confidence in keeping a bike running under even the roughest circumstances.

In the second workshop, participants will address specific mechanical problems with their own bikes and go through various hypothetical situations. Then we will personalize the bikes (without causing detriment to their functionality) — painting, scratching, hand sewing, and accessorizing will be covered. Afterwards, we’ll celebrate with a group bike ride through Western Queens. Tour guides will provide historical perspective on the neighborhood, treating participants to eclectic stories long past and oddities easily missed.

About the instructor: Eric Petersen has been working in the bicycle industry since 2006. He was the first shop manager of Silk Road Cycles and currently is the head mechanic at Recycle-a-Bicycle in DUMBO. He commutes daily, races occasionally, and tours whenever he can. His interest in cycling borders on the obsessive. To him, bikes are a tool that both strengthen personal independence and bond communities.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Bike is part of Flux Factory’s 2013 educational initiative, Make It Til You Break It, a series of hands-on workshops that teach practical skills and culminate in a group activity among participants. It is supported, in part, by National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

In an interview from 1986, Isamu Noguchi described the newly-created Noguchi Museum as “a place to reflect and see an alternative existence.” The Noguchi Museum’s upcoming Community Day celebrates slowing down and focusing, and explores the contemplative opportunities offered by this special museum space.

This year, Flux Factory is pleased to participate by hosting a Slow Art viewing experience in the museum. Choose from among five experiences, curated by hosts from the local LIC community, in which participants spend ten or more minutes with each of three works of art. Then join your host for a discounted drink at a nearby restaurant, to discuss the experience.

Hosts include Flux Factory Artists-in-Residence Sarah Witt and Marco Castro; Magda Dejose, a ceramic artist who works in Long Island City; and LIC resident Elizabeth Ferguson. Click here to register!

For a complete list of Community Day events, please visit www.noguchi.org/programs

Image of Sarah & Marco courtesy Georgia Muenster, 2013.

My Diamond Shoes are Too Tight: A Discussion of Fame is a panel discussion and presentation bringing together three artists who have a critical and unique approach to celebrity. JD Samson, Josh Harris, and Ann Hirsch will explore some of the lesser discussed aspects of being a public figure, and will be moderated by Nathaniel Sullivan. This event is part of Fake It ‘Til You Make It, Flux Factory’s take on the traditional artist professional development series; it is free and open to the public, has a cheap bar, and highly values audience participation.

JD Samson is a musician and artist best known as a member of the bands Le Tigre and Men. JD has written extensively about her own fame, cultural/political role, and the economics of being a successful artists.

Josh Luvvy Harris started a leading Internet research firm Jupiter Communications in 1986. He took the company public and cashed out. In 1994, he founded the world’s first internet radio/television network, Pseudo Programs, Inc. He was the subject of the Grand Jury Prize winning documentary film “We Live In Public” at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival which made it into the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; Josh ran the underground art scene in New York City during the 1990′s. Of late, he is the protagonist of a biography, “Totally Wired: On the Trail of the Great Dotcom Swindle,” as well as the subject of a fictional film entitled “The Gent” to be released next year. Mr. Harris’ current project, “Cybership.tv,” enables the audience to watch and interact with each other.

Ann Hirsch is a video and performance artist engaging with the contemporary portrayal of women in media. She often acts as an amateur social scientist, inserting herself into popular culture and reporting back her findings in the form of art works. Some of these interventions have included bouts with YouTube celebrity, competing for romance on Vh1 and buying antiques on Science Channel’s Oddities. She was awarded a 2012-2013 Rhizome commission and was recently named one of 8 Brooklyn Art Stars by L Magazine.

Nathaniel Sullivan is a performance artist who has lectured on subjects as varied as Francois Mitterrand’s last meal, Wilt Chamberlain’s sex life, and the love letters of banker Jamie Dimon. For the past year he has taken this practice to the streets and has led a guided walking tour of an abandoned housing project re-imagined as a Richard Sera sculpture, conducted a seminar on desire from the back of a limousine and performed for one person at at Brooklyn Nets game.

About the Series: Part artist boot camp, part motivational speech therapy, Fake It Till You Make It discusses the challenges of surviving as an artist in New York City. In this collection of playfully flippant classes, performative lectures, and discussion-based workshops, Flux Factory invites members of the NYC art community to reveal the secrets of their success.

Though contextualized as an irreverent investigation of fame, fortune, and self-promotion in the art world, the main goals are to 1) acknowledge the “real world” issues that surround creative practice, e.g., limited funding resources, the MFA industrial complex, new themes in professional development, etc., 2) gain insight from the practical knowledge of some of our idols and peers, and 3) expand the notion of nonprofit art educational programming through self-reflexive and unconventional approaches.

Fake It ‘Til You Make It is organized by Aliya Bonar, Alex Nathanson & Christina Vassallo. It is supported by National Endowment for the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Guests were invited to become pop idols themselves by participating in YouTube Karaoke and getting Belieber nail art by Anna Harsanyi. Pizza was provided so hungry party goers could dance all night. And just when everybody thought the party couldn’t get any crazier, Viva Bodyroll and her proFRESH dance crew burst in with an energetic dance routine and kept the party going with a dance-along-dance-a-thon. All the unforgettable fun was documented on a custom photo booth.

Wow, what a night! Hope mom and dad don’t find out. Thanks to everyone for attending and helping us reach our fundraising goal to keep our public events mostly free.

Go ‘like’ all the wild party pix on Facebook!

Flux Factory’s personified abridged history, on one Mega Twister board (photo courtesy Christina Vassallo, 2013).

In conjunction with Flux Factory’s current group exhibition, Kitty City, Moira Williams has assembled some of New York City’s finest poets for a poetry slam, including Kitty City Poet Laureate, Bob Holman. Jennifer Hsu and James Wang will share some excerpts from a new experimental video collage which touches on ideas around the spectrum of cuteness, population control, mutualistic/commensal human–animal relationships, and the viewing of pet-ownership through a postmodern lens. Flux Artist-in-Residence Sarah Witt will host an unofficial funeral for the body of work born out of her seduction by, and catastrophic romance with, a building. Flux Artist-in-Residence Mille Højerslev Nielsen will talk about the work she is making while at Flux Factory.

Bring drinks or something tasty to share!

Flux family and friends might recognize Phunquey, one of Flux Factory’s co-founders, from any number of projects spanning 1994 – 2006. Perhaps most memorable to his legions of admirers is Phunquey’s contribution to the 2002 Men of Flux calendar (which inspired the spin-off 2012 (Wo)(Men) of Flux calendar). More recently, Fluxers might recognize Jake Pratt as an enthusiastic guest of International Scott Day and the infamous Disco Crepe Party. We’re happy they are both on board in this new capacity!

(l): detail of photo of Jake Pratt at “Banquet for America” courtesy Abeer Hoque, 2012
(r): photo of Phunquey and Christina Vassallo at Tween Dweam Social courtesy Flux Factory, 2013

A team of kids, artists, and city planners are designing and building a thriving meowtropolis: Kitty City

Ribbon cutting ceremony, kitten adoption drive, and closing celebration: June 1 2013, noon – 6pm

Visit the crew and check out their progress during weekends in May by appointment.

Kitty City is an inter-generational experiment in collaboration and pedagogy, designed to encourage shared decision-making power and challenge the way we think about the urban environment.

During four workshops in May, we will design buildings, thoroughfares, and other urban elements to meet our strict zoning standards for living the good life. We’ll plan parks; devise water, transportation, and sanitation systems; map out housing options, commercial and cultural districts; and be sure there’s plenty fresh and healthy food. After our shared vision is approved by committees and review boards, we’ll build Kitty City in the Flux Gallery. On June 1st, we’ll flood Kitty City with kittens during a ribbon cutting ceremony that will double as an adoption drive.

If you are a student who would like to help build Kitty City, please contact Doug – doug[at]fluxfactory.org.  Workshops will be three hours on every Saturday in May.

Douglas Paulson

Elizabeth Hamby

James Wang

Leah Wolff

James Rojas

Deborah Helaine Morris

Jennifer Hsu

Moira Williams

Sofy Yuditskaya

Theodoros Zafeiropoulos

Christine Laquet

Christina Vassallo

Flux Factory is excited to partner with For Animals, Inc., who will provide Kitty City with its inhabitants, and host the adoption event at Kitty City on June 1st. There will be no lag time in the adoption process and new owners can leave with their Kitty citizen on the same day. For Animals, a no-kill animal shelter in South Ozone Park, New York, is dedicated to eliminating companion animal homelessness, engaging our larger community as vital and active participants in this shared social and ethical responsibility, and providing that community with the resources and education necessary to achieve these goals together.

This exhibition is supported, in part, by National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Help us celebrate the last of our teenage years as Flux Factory turns 19. We’ll pull out all the stops to transform the Flux gallery into the best dance party you never had in your parents’ basement. There will be dance floor Twister, nail art by Anna Harsanyi, pizza, a ball pit, funky chaperones, a secret bar, and YouTube karaoke emceed by the infinitely talented Jason Eppink, and stocked with shiny costumes to help you pretend you can croon better than Bieber.

After karaoke, get pumped with Viva and her Bodyroll dance crew. They’re gonna get the dance party started and show you how to dance like a fly gurl. Wind the evening up with post-karaoke DJ sets by Mother and DJ Pampa, and make all your tween dweams come true!

Purchase tickets in advance to get a guaranteed spot in the karaoke song queue. Once you buy your ticket, feel free to email your song requests to info@fluxfactory.org.

All proceeds will go to supporting our awesome (mostly) free events and Flux Artist-in-Residence program.

Date + time: April 18-21 2013, 5pm – 10pm
Location: Flux Factory, 31-39 29th Street, Long Island City, New York

In Words Drown I presents: a carnivalistic exhibition experience.

“In the world of carnival the awareness of the people’s immortality is combined with the realization that established authority and truth are relative.” – Bakhtin, 1968

The early carnival was a site of disorder and survival, deeply connected to the bodily experience. It embraced ritual spectacles such as feasts, competitions, comic shows, dancing and open-air amusement with costumes and masks, giants, monsters, trained animals–in short all the ‘low’ and ‘dirty’ kinds of folklore tradition. On the positive side the early carnival explored collectivity, on the negative side it perpetuated class hierarchy, political manipulation, sexual repression and paranoia, as well as contributed to a misinformed public.

CARNE VALE is an experiment and an exhibition experience that investigates the cultural, social, ethical and political implications of the early carnival through daily performances and film screenings. It is developed around the essay, “No Man is an Island, Entire of Itself” by the exhibition’s curator Mille Højerslev Nielsen, which addresses the spectacle of early carnivals.

Participating artists include Ella Joyce Buckley (US), Mikkel Carl (DK), Steven Day (US), Gerard Faroux (FR), Ingen Frygt (DK), Rebecca Goyette (US), Madeleine Kate (DK), Mathias Kryger (DK), Dominika Ksel (PL), Piero Passacantando (IT), Laurent Pernel (FR), Risa Puno (US), SCRIMPY (US), Jessica Stoller (US), Peter Voss-Knude (DK), Alexandria Wailes (US), and former and current Flux Artists-in-Residence Constantin Hartenstein (DE), Anne Duk Hee Jordan (DE), Christine Laquet (FR), Anastasios Logothesis (GR/SE), Stéphane Pauvret (FR), Theodoros Zafeiropoulos (GR).

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
Thursday, April 18th:
Christine Laquet with Gerard Faroux & Alexandria Wailes at 7 PM
SCRIMPY at 8 PM

Friday, April 19th:
Dominika Ksel at 7 PM

Saturday, April 20th:
SCRIMPY at 7 PM
Alex Bleeker & The Freaks at 8 PM
Andrew Cedermark at 9 PM

Sunday, April 21st:
Rebecca Goyette & Ella Joyce Buckley at 7 PM

In Words Drown I is a curatorial and aesthetic platform from where exhibitions, events and publications are produced. In Words Drown I is interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary in its approach and the goal is to break down common ideas about contemporary literature and visual art.

Long Walks in the Museum is a public project that positions people in relation to art. It is a sequence of planned one-on-one walks which pass through galleries designated “Egyptian”, “American”, “Medieval”, “European”, “African/Oceanic/American”, and “Greek” in one of the preeminent cultural institutions of New York City.

This is an invitation to be led by an unofficial docent, and to serve as an unofficial docent. No experience is necessary. An alternative exhibition catalogue will be opened for entries at the end of each walk. To schedule an appointment, please call 917-300-9521. Note: appointments are limited.

Long Walks in the Museum, by Dillon de Give, is the third in a seasonal series of dual stranger walks in affiliation with The Walk Exchange and Flux Factory. This series is part of Flux Factory’s upcoming Fall 2013 exhibition, Untitled (As of Yet), a group show about unexpected circumstances, the breakdown of routine, and displacement as a potentially fruitful phenomenon. It is supported by National Endowment for the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Join us for Flux Thursday, our monthly potluck and salon! Dinner starts at 8pm, with artist presentations beginning at 9:30. This evening’s line-up is: Filippos Oraiopoulos will present a performative conference called Murder’s Archive: a live audio interview a screening of movie fragments and slide show. Theodoros Zafeiropoulos will present Intake – an Epic Story of Failure, which he worked on between 2009 and 2011. Patricia Dominguez will present The Museum of the Seagulls, a museum her grandfather put together in Chile. Renzo Ortega, a New York based visual artist from Peru, will present a selection of music videos he made for music collective R-tronika.Constantin Hartenstein, an installation and video artist and Flux resident, will present his artistic praxis and show examples of his video Works.

“Life, that is law.” Author Daniel Kehlmann’s simple observation, found in his novel Measuring the World, is Emde’s guiding principle. In his body of work, Emde investigates the question of how to “cope with everyday life,” and creates thematically ordered cyclical series of work with etching and screen printing techniques.

Selected solo exhibitions : 2012 : ” Only two can play this game ” Gallery Chu,Cologne; ” Joseph-und-Anna-Fassbender Preis ” Gallery Brühl; 2011 : ” P-mel und die Penisraketenproblematik“, Gallery Nina Sagt, Düsseldorf ; 2010 : ” Philip Emde hat mein Leben zerstört “ Gallery Mülhaupt, Cologne ; 2008 : ” Glanzkinder Gallery “, Cologne

Selected group exhibitions include : 2012 : ” Finalist(inn)en des Mannheimer Kunstpreises 2012 der Heinrich-Vetter-Stiftung ” , Städtische Galerie Mannheim , ” back for good ” frappant e.v. , Hamburg ; 2011 : ” MIKRO MAKRO KOSMOS ” , Kunstverein Germersheim , ” Junge Rheinland-Pfälzer Künstler undKünstlerinnen“ / Emy-Röder-Preis 2011

Philip Emde’s 6 month residency (April – September 2013 ) is made possible with support of Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral / Stiftung Rheinland-Pfalz für Kultur

LONG ISLAND CITY — The minds behind the funky art collective Flux Factory are taking a curious turn with their latest exhibit: converting their Long Island City gallery space into a modern-day curiosities museum.

The exhibit The Wonder Cabinet, which opened at Flux Factory this week, takes its cues from the 16th and 17th-century idea of a “cabinet of curiosities” — rooms that housed strange and often eclectic collections of objects regarded with fascination at the time, like fossils and other items from nature.

“It was basically a precursor to the modern museum,” said Flux Factory curator Georgia Muenster, who said the exhibit is based off the Musei Wormiani Historia of Ole Worm, a Danish forensic doctor from the 1600s whose curiosities collection was recreated at the Geological Museum in Denmark.

“The notion here was to make our own 21st century version,” Muenster said. “It struck me that it would be amazing to see something like this created for the modern time. What are the precious objects these days, and how do we make it relevant to an audience now?”

The result is the interpretation of 11 Flux Factory artists, who turned the group’s gallery space into an interactive walk-through cabinet of wonders.

The exhibit, which is on display through the end of March, is a maze of rooms filled with drawers to open and explore, a staircase for a ziggurat, or ancient Mesopotamian temple, a photo booth and a wall of test tubes holding butterflies.

One artist installed a plinko game on an old conveyor belt, leftover from when the Flux Factory building was once a greeting card factory.

Flux Factory has also self-published a book to coincide with the show. The paperback Wonder Cabinet is a collection of stories, prose and other writings from the artists involved, which were woven together by Irene Lee, a former Flux artist-in-residence. The text was used as a storyboard for the actual physical exhibit.

The Wonder Cabinet will be on display until March 31 at the Flux Factory studio, 39-31 29th St. in Long Island City. Hours are Saturdays and Sundays from 12 to 6 p.m. or by appointment.

In Words Drown I presents a carnivalistic exhibition experiment at Flux Factory, April 18th – 21st 2013.

“In the world of carnival the awareness of the people’s immortality is combined with the realization that established authority and truth are relative.” – Bakhtin, 1968

In western visual culture the early carnival was a site of disorder and survival, deeply connected to the bodily experience. The carnival embraced ritual spectacles such as feasts, competitions, comic shows, dancing and open-air amusement with costumes and masks, giants, monsters, trained animals–in short all the ‘low’ and ‘dirty’ kinds of folklore tradition. On the positive side the early carnival explored collectivity, on the negative side it perpetuated class hierarchy, political manipulation, sexual repression and paranoia, as well as contributed to a misinformed public.

Curator and writer Mille Højerslev Nielsen invites artists of all disciplines to participate in an exhibition that will explore themes related to the early carnival. The exhibition is an extension of her upcoming essay, “No Man is an Island, Entire of Itself – Collectivism in Arts and the Early Carnival”, and will also include a video screening program organized by Nielsen and her fellow Flux Artists-in-Residence Constantin Hartenstein and Christine Laquet. Video artists are invited to apply with any type of video work, also related to the early carnival.

To apply please send a proposal, sketches of the proposed artwork and/or images of relevant previous work, and a biography to mille[at]fluxfactory[dot]org, no later than April 1st.

In Words Drown I is an open aesthetic and curatorial platform from which exhibitions, events and publications are produced. The focus is on cross-aesthetic and interdisciplinarity within contemporary art and literature. In Words Drown I was founded in 2012 by Mille Højerslev Nielsen.

Closing Party: Sunday, March 31, 6pm-8pm

Flux Factory is pleased to announce The Wonder Cabinet, an experiment in collaborative story writing and contemporary wunderkammer. The exhibition brings together an eclectic group of artists – sculptors, costumers, video artists, holographers, and more – to compose a narrative together and build a walk-through cabinet of curiosities filled with elements from the text.

The product of a series of round-table discussions, the narrative surrounding The Wonder Cabinet has been published as part of the project with the help of our resident writer, former Flux Artist-in-Residence, Irene Lee. The textual content, including the characters, scenery, and plot, is entirely up to the artists. From there, the artists have physically constructed a gigantic cabinet of wonders in the Flux gallery responding to the story, including a maze of rooms, drawers to open and explore, a ziggurat-staircase, a photo booth, a plinko game installed on our conveyor belt, and installations that activate different parts of the gallery. Artists took cues from the classic “Musei Wormiani Historia” of Ole Worm – now reconstructed at the Geological Museum of Copenhagen – as inspiration to build an immersive space serving as a physical memory surrounding the narrative. While a traditional cabinet is filled with noteworthy items of natural – or occasionally strikingly unnatural – interest, such as fierce pieces of taxidermy, fossils, plants, or ocean life, this project asks artists to build their own history.

NEWS: The Wonder Cabinet book, a collection of artist-composed short stories, fables, diaries, and any number of other textual possibilities composed for this exhibition, has officially been published! It’s now available online through Lulu.

Participating Artists: Adrian Owen, Alex Nathanson, Ari Richter, Daupo, Jason Eppink, Kate Jansyn, Marco Castro, Martina Mrongovius, Michelle Leftheris, Sarah Walko, and Stephanie Avery. Resident Writer: Irene Lee. Curated by Georgia Muenster, with assistance from Carina Kaufman and Mille Højerslev Nielsen

Please send inquiries to Georgia@fluxfactory.org.

This exhibition is supported, in part, by National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the Danish Arts Council.

Bring drinks or something tasty to share!

Image credit: Ari Richter, The Cheekbiter III

A couple of Saturdays ago I had the honor of judging Flux Factory’s second or third Iron Chef Contest. The exact number isn’t important—Fluxers aren’t concerned with accuracy so much as getting the job done. Iron Chef judges (myself included) were told to look for “fluxiness” in the “Fluxers.” While it was never fully defined, the meaning quickly became apparent: it’s the creative cajones required to make do with what you have. When showcased effectively, as it was that evening, fluxiness is both terrifying and exhilarating.

Most of the night was a blur. Flux Factory residents Georgia Muenster, Aliya Bonar, Theodoros Zafeiropoulos, Stephanie Avery, and Nick Cregor competed for an absurd trophy: a yellow sponge with glasses, a fake nose, and a whisk for hair. They took the challenge seriously. Underneath a chicken disco ball, we watched a flurry of activity on countertops and stoves. Either to calm our nerves or to fuel the excitement, judges were supplied with drinks that tasted like hot sauce bathed in 180-proof liquor. Needless to say no one drank much.

Right away, Aliya Bonar, a sculptor who specializes in DIY costume design, promised to make some savory raisin cookies and tofu something-or-other. About 15 minutes in, we watched her drop the cookie dough on the floor in her hurry and toss it back in the bowl; “she’s a wild card for sure,” I thought. Then, scrambling for a food processor and not finding one, she just smashed a pile of almonds with a teapot.

Stephanie Avery, a graphic artist and designer, maneuvered the stove/counter/kitchen like a pro and announced she’d be making raisin cookies, Tsimmis (a stewy dish with a lot of carrots), and an apple-ginger chutney. Ambitious! Flux’s curatorial fellow Georgia Muenster presented just one dish: a banana cream pie with raisin reduction. I nearly forgot about her as she worked so quietly at the back of the kitchen.

Finally, land artist and sculptor Theodoros Zafeiropoulos lit his stove on fire while roasting eggplants (it was on purpose and extinguished quickly) and performance artist Nick Cregor said he had no idea what he was making before he hollered for a fork. Ultimately, he scraped together a flatbread dish topped with a black-bean-and-raisin mash and sauteed onions. With lowered expectations, I was pleasantly surprised to find the dish delicious.

I’m not sure I saw any actual raisins fly or dishes crash in the final minutes of the competition, but tensions were high and the words of an unidentified contestant during the fire earlier loomed large. “Be careful! We all have a lot of food around here!”

As some readers may have surmised from the quality of my descriptions, I’m about as much of a dining critic as these artists are America’s next top chefs. I was qualified to judge this contest because I’ve eaten food in the past, and the Flux chefs qualified to participate because they’ve made some. Expertise wasn’t as relevant to this competition as getting out of our comfort zones and exercising the muscles we use every day when making art or writing criticism.

And so, when the (painfully sober) judges Steven Stern, Harriet Taub, Tracy Candido and David Shapiro thought about what it might mean for a dish to be fluxy, we tried to award points to artists who had been the most creative in their problem solving. Dark-horse contestant Georgia Muenster came very close to winning for having the guts to present only a dessert. It didn’t hurt that her pie was delicious.

In the end though, Aliya Bonar went home with the trophy sponge, not just because she managed to make a savory oatmeal raisin cookie topped with cheese taste really amazing, but because she went the extra mile for it. Crushing whole almonds theatrically, with a small teapot, probably isn’t art. But the thinking that lead to that decision is certainly part of it.

Flux Factory is excited to participate in “Playtime: a performative pedagogical symposium on New York artist communities today”, organized by Cold Castle.  Executive Director Christina Vassallo and Residency Director Douglas Paulson will show an odd slideshow of Fluxy project outtakes, and reveal some juicy nuggets from the Fluxy emails of yesteryear.

Pre-reception: 6pm, Family Business, 520 W 21st Street, Chelsea
Symposium 6:45, EYEBEAM, 540 West 21st Street, Chelsea
Post-reception punctuated with a glitter meltdown intervention by CHERYL
RSVP: info@honey-space.com
phone: 646.319.1530

Four fellow Flux Master Chefs – Stephanie “You’re out of your element” Avery, Nick “I’ll have my cake and eat yours too” Cregor, Theodoros “The After Burner” Zafeiropoulos, Georgia “This takes the cake” Muenster – and I (Aliya “Beyond Consumption” Bonar) put our culinary skills to the test last Saturday when we reenacted the Japanese competitive cooking show, “Iron Chef” in the Flux Kitchen Stadium.

With exactly one hour of cooking time, our challenge was to prepare dishes that best articulated the flavors of the secret ingredient – raisins – selected randomly out of a (mixing) bowl just before the start of the competition. We would be judged based on presentation, originality, taste, and fluxiness. You can watch the full video of the event here and the awards ceremony here, both narrated by Jason Eppink, and the event trailer here, edited by Constantin Hartenstein.

The final spread of dishes included: banana-raisin cream pie topped with candied ginger and a raisin reduction, almond cookies with feta and citrus soaked raisins, raisin chutney with plantain chips, raisin omlette-ettes, homemade flatbread with bean-quiona-raisin spread and topped with sauteed onions, a traditional Greek moussaka – in miniature form.

I love cooking and I love cooking for a crowd so this was totally fun for me – not to mention I won with my savory almond cookie and citrus raisins. But beyond just being the center of attention, I loved this event which represented so much of what Flux is about for me. While slamming a teapot on a bag of almonds to crush them, I thought of how Fluxers make incredibly high quality products with the most pedestrian of ingredients and tools. As we seamlessly danced between each other, the stove, refrigerator, and tight real estate of the stove top (with only one small fire, one burn, and a couple bumps!) I was reminded of how we as Fluxers work together and have the collective awareness to look out for each other, making sure each individual has the space to flourish inside of the larger context. When presenting our incredible array of dishes (from multiple countries and covering multiple courses) to the judges, the diversity of points of view encompassed by Flux, and how we all take the same resources and create entirely different products, was evident.

As a scenographer, Stéphane gives priority to human contact through numerous collaborations, notably in contemporary dance, theatre and opera. He overturns the conventions of our standard spaces of representation, in order to open up new fields of investigation while maintaining a critical approach to ‘the spectacle’ and the mark it has made on our way of life.

These displacements are spotlights on what he calls the phenomenon of rapid growth in art – the friction between visual arts and performing arts. Finding ways to re-present his theatrical work in a new form off the stage, he makes visible and transparent the mechanisms of the theatre.

Stéphane graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure for Decorative Arts in Strasbourg. He holds a DPEA in stage-design from the School of Architecture of Nantes. He received his post-graduate degree  from the International School of Fine-Arts in Nantes. He currently resides in Nantes, where he was bestowed with the Prize for Art-Design in 2004 on behalf of the city.

His current projects include: Frisbee at the Atelier in Nantes, Historias conectadas at the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Recife (Brazil), Real(ity) cuts at the MACBA in Barcelona (Spain), Peripheral Vision and Collective Body at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Bolzano (Italy), and Plus general en particulier at the Frac des Pays de la Loire in Nantes.

Before the start of the Flux Factory’s Death Match, Arts Funding: Follow the $$$$, one of the many affiliated programs for No Longer Empty’s (NLE) current exhibition, guests mingle with plastic cups of red wine and Crisp beers in their hands. The panelists, Steve Lambert, co-founder of the Center for Creative Activism; Alexis Clements, current fellow at the Cultural Strategies Initiative; and Deborah Fisher, executive director of A Blade of Grass, interact casually with each other before the debate begins. In the background Coolio’s Money (Dollar Bill Y’all) plays as a projector flashes photos from the 1980s culture wars, along with other relatable imagery.

I first learned about NLE through a review of its last exhibition This Side of Paradise in the Bronx. It was there that I sat on a patch of grass with executive director Naomi Hersson-Ringskog learning about NLE’s unique process that fuses curatorial practice, cultural tourism and community engagement.

This past December, NLE celebrated the opening of its 14th site-specific exhibition, How Much Do I Owe You?, with shoulder-to-shoulder attendance and an acoustic jazz band playing from a platform overlooking the crowd. Displayed throughout the three levels of the once Chase Manhattan Bank building, the space with its unlocked vaults and unexpected passageways, echoes the themes of currency, value and exchange from an unassuming perspective — the artist’s.

On my first visit to the Clock Tower in Long Island City, Queens, the exhibition was still in its installation phase with sporadic elements of each artists’ work spread out on the floors and tucked in side alcoves shooting off from the central nave of the buildings cathedral-like entrance. Communications manager Lucy Lydon was kind enough to give me a tour of the space, highlighting installations like Hayoon Jay Lee’s Shifting Landscape — a swirling landscape of rice grains illuminated from underneath by a strand of light.

The show also includes some interactive pieces like Jennifer Dalton’s Reckoning. For this installation, visitors are invited to consider notions of “Surplus” and “Debt” as they relate to everyday experiences by filling out surveys identifying where we’ve given more than we’ve received and vice versa. In exchange, participants can take a pin identifying either experience. Mine said, “Chump.”

Another interactive piece, Mel Chin’s installation of the ongoing Operation Paydirt project, began in New Orleans in 2008 after Hurricane Katrina and is geared toward the prevention of lead (Pb) poising among children. In this piece, guests can contribute to the project by designing their own “Fundred” Dollar Bills and depositing them in the F.R.E.E (Fundred Reserve Even Exchange) Bank — the safe house for this symbolic, public currency that will be presented to Congress in exchange for real funding to eradicate lead poisoning. The “Drawing Station” includes green glass shade lamps reminiscent of an old bank house and in keeping with the history of the building, dating back to 1927 and dubbed the first skyscraper in Queens.

The debate was broken down into two rounds, each framed by questions pertaining to arts funding and, incidentally, themes floating around the exhibition. Each panelist is given a limited amount of time to respond before a flood of sounds and a portable fog machine drowns them out. At any given time, another panelist can lay a “smack down” card on the responding panelist, should he or she feel so moved to interrupt with an opposing statement. The audience is also given the opportunity to “smack down” a panelist in each round.

Here’s an example:

When Alexis Clements criticized the commitment of Kickstarter campaigners, stating the rarity of completed projects sponsored through the online fundraising platform, a voice from the crowd yells, “Smack that sh*t down!”, and the crowd cheers and laughs collectively.

Despite her willingness to upset the crowd and stir up trouble, many of Clements’ comments rang true with the audience and provoked many head nods, my own included. Among her valid points, Clements illuminated the inequitable distribution of arts funding to women and people and communities of color in the United States — facts that have been astutely exposed in Holly Sidford’s recent report, Fusing Arts, Culture and Social Change: High Impact Strategies for Philanthropy. In it, Sidford explains that of the 11 percent of annual foundation giving for arts and culture nonprofits, more than half is awarded to organizations with budgets of more than $5 million (2 percent of arts nonprofits), leaving just 10 percent for those nonprofits that strengthen and engage communities of color, and 4 percent for organizations focusing on social justice work.

Fisher was able to offer her own perspectives, from the position of the funder, representing A Blade of Grass, a nonprofit that supports individual artists and small nonprofits engaging with social justice issues. To the many questions posed that critiqued the origin of money funding the arts (i.e., Wall Street), Fisher preached that perhaps what matters more is how the money is used once it’s awarded to the arts organizations and artists. Although this may be true, accepting funding from just anywhere could prove to be problematic if the giver’s reputation and behavior contradicts and even dismantles the mission of the receiver.

In the midst of this discussion, Lambert made the point that anything that’s important enough can be done with little or no money, to which an audience member shouted, “But is that sustainable?”

Although Death Match puts a clever and quirky spin on a bitter subject, the reality is individual artists and arts organizations have shifted into crisis gear, as we all run our soup bowls along the bottom of the barrel. Aside from inequitable distribution on the part of philanthropic institutions, arts funding allocations on the state, local and federal levels (with the exception of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) have continued to decline significantly over the past four years. Local government arts funding has fallen 18 percent since 2008 while funding from the state has decreased 27 percent within the same time span. Both figures are comparable to arts funding allocations of the late ’90s (Grantmakers in the Arts, Public Funding for the Arts: 2012 Update). Meanwhile, arts and cultural groups are forced to think creatively about fund-raising and access to diverse streams of revenue.

Despite these challenges, organizations like NLE continue to churn quality, professional exhibitions and programs without sacrificing quality. Like most arts nonprofits, NLE collects its revenue from a variety of sources, including foundations, fundraising events and individual donations.

“Foundation funding is getting better as we have a longer track record of successful projects,” says NLE founder, president and chief curator, Manon Slome. “But corporate [is] getting very hard as they scale back giving.”

Perhaps it’s not just the creative success that strengthens their reputability as a fundable arts nonprofit (I’ve seen their 990 and trust me, they are, in fact a real nonprofit!), but also the collective disposition of their staff from the executives to the interns. In a time when arts and culture are often mistakenly discounted as secondary to basic human needs, it certainly can’t hurt to have a team of accessible people who curate spaces and opportunities to engage with contemporary art within a given community.

Follow Tina Orlandini on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@Tina_Orlandini

The debaters pose for a (mock) action shot mid-debate. (left to right) Steve Lambert, Alexis Clements, and Deborah Fisher.

A “Death Match” focused on arts funding? Sounds bloody and dramatic, and like something that might involve a lot of paper cuts. Probably best to be avoided.

But this January that’s exactly what I found myself involved in. And because the organizers didn’t tell us speakers any of the specific rules before the event, I couldn’t entirely be sure if acts of physical or verbal violence weren’t involved.

Would I be willing to die for my position on arts funding? And what do they even mean by “arts funding?” What do I mean by it?

Of course, the title was hyperbole. And, in the end, it was a good-humored energetic debate, organized by Flux Factory, an arts organization based in Queens, New York. My fellow speakers, Deborah Fisher and Steve Lambert, didn’t take predatory stances. In fact, the two of them had previously exchanged some arts funding with one another—Fisher’s organization, A Blade of Grass, gave a grant to the Center for Artistic Activism, the organization that Lambert co-founded. And based on their introductions, each of them receives the bulk of their incomes from various traditional arts funding sources, such as private philanthropy, grants and prizes, and income from their respective arts organizations.

Over the course of the evening the three of us addressed a handful of questions from the organizers and the audience, ranging from the influence of wealthy donors on individual artists to the proliferation of Master of Fine Art (MFA) programs in the U.S. to competing political ideologies.

It was certainly among the more playful and interactive panel discussions that I have witnessed, and certainly the most fun among the panels that I’ve sat on. But it’s always a little tricky to figure out what comes out of these discussions in the longer-term.

For me, a couple of things stood out when all was said and done. First, it’s essential to recognize the full scope of funding that artists make use of if we’re going to get a clear picture of how funding works. And second, institutional and traditional arts funding seems to exacerbate problems that exist within the arts and across the culture, particularly when it comes to the exclusion of poor artists, people of color, women, queer and trans artists, artists with disabilities, and artists following non-traditional paths (career changes, older artists, artists working outside of institutional settings, etc).

At the outset of the event, the organizers (Flux Factory’s Executive Director, Christina Vassallo, and Douglas Paulson, the residency director) asked us to describe how we get paid. I could have simply said that a very small percentage of my income comes from my playwriting and other creative writing, along with my journalism work, while the bulk of my income comes from a non-arts related part-time job. But instead, I wanted to highlight some of the issues that extend from the pervasive thinking that one’s income can or should be tied to direct earnings from one’s art work.

Here are some of the points I started with, and a few that I didn’t have a chance to finish before being smoked out by the smoke machine and noisemakers that told us our time was up:

» According to the National Endowment for the Arts’ 2008 Artists in the Workforce report, female artists make 65 cents to the male artist’s dollar. There is no reference in the report to transgender or gender non-conforming artists.

» That means the gender-based wage gap in the arts is actually worse than it is in the larger workforce, where, depending on who is reporting and how it is calculated, women make 77-81 percent of what men make (Source 1, Source 2—among others), with lower percentages for women of color, particularly Latina women.

» Follow that up with the reality that, for instance, only five percent of the art on display in U.S. museums is by women (Source), only nine percent of film directors are women (Source), and only 17-20 percent of plays produced in the U.S. are by women (Source). And those numbers only scratch the surface—almost none indicate statistics for trans-women or lesbians. Finding accurate statistics about the representation of artists of color across artistic genres is maddeningly difficult, but it is safe to assume from the few stats available for specific communities within niches of the arts that the percentage of opportunities they receive, along with other under-represented groups, is achingly small.

» Add to that the results from the 2010 survey conducted by the group WAGE (Working Artists and the Greater Economy), which shows that out of a sample of 731 visual and performing artists a full 58 percent of the artists were paid nothing when presenting their work in New York City venues. They weren’t even reimbursed for direct costs.

Top all that off with the further reality that the bulk of philanthropy in the arts goes to only two percent of the nation’s arts institutions, who are among those with the largest budgets (Source).

To restate the above succinctly: the vast majority of traditional arts funding (large grants and private philanthropy) goes to a tiny minority of arts institutions and organizations, and we know that many major arts orgs are among the worst offenders in terms of excluding under-presented groups. Not to mention, many of the institutions that are getting funding are failing to pay any of that money to the artists they do present.

Which is to say, traditional arts funding, by and large, appears to be complicit in a system that rewards discriminatory practices, and much of the time the money that is distributed fails to reach actual artists.

One easy solution to this problem that I mentioned at the debate: traditional arts funders and board members at arts organizations can tie their support to requirements that artists receive a portion of the funding and that there be increased representation of women, artists of color, and other under-represented groups.

I can imagine that for some, the above statement will ruffle some feathers, but the reality is that when the National Museum for Women in the Arts is estimating that 51 percent of artists are women, but only five percent of opportunities to exhibit within museums are going to women, discrimination is clear and in desperate need of correction, for all under-presented groups.

But the above also begs the question—if so few artists are being paid to present their work by private philanthropy or government (the NEA offers almost no funding directly to individual artists, and state arts agencies give only three percent of their grant dollars to individual artists), then why do we typically only think of them when we think of arts funding? How are artists actually paying for the time and direct costs associated with making their work? Why don’t we refer to any source of money that an artist uses to fund the making of their work as part of a larger, more complete understanding of arts funding?

The reality is that there are a huge array of arts funding models that artists regularly make use of. There’s crowd-funding and the starting of non-profits. There are temporary employment models, where artists are used as consultants or asked to provide services that relate to their art. For a huge portion of artists, a larger chunk of their funding comes from themselves, in the form of non-art-making employment (day jobs, seasonal work, etc.). And of course, for centuries, many artists have simply been supported by their families or spouses. That continues to be true for many artists today. Others have had and do have wealthy patrons. Certainly these last two funding sources are not options for many artists and I am not advocating for any of the above models by acknowledging their existence. What I’m pushing for is a more clear-eyed look at the real sources of funding behind artists, because I think that more accurate information about how artists are actually funding their work might help us get a better picture of the conditions necessary to succeed within today’s arts institutions and make the institutions of the future more accessible to a wider spectrum of artists.

There are many other funding sources besides those mentioned above. A few years back I read a memoir about a couple that lived in an RV and sold their blood to help fund their work. Talk about a death match! Again, I’m not advocating for that, but what all this demonstrates is that funding for the arts comes from many sources, and if we ignore the non-traditional streams then we’ll fail to understand the real role that money plays in offering opportunity to some while standing in the way for others.

Meanwhile, I think my time is up on this debate for the moment. I’ll leave it there until the next round!

Alexis Clements is a playwright and journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. She is also a fellow at Cultural Strategies Initiative. Her creative work has been produced and published in both the U.S. and the UK. She is the co-editor of the two-volume anthology of performance texts by women titled, Out of Time & Place, which includes her performance piece, Conversation. Her articles, essays, and interviews have appeared in publications such as Bitch Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, The L Magazine, Nature, and Aesthetica. She regularly writes about art and performance for Hyperallergic.

In 2004, he was the co-curator for the Greek Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Filippos is the co-founder of Built Event, a program of spatial practices for architecture, art, curating and urbanism, which he presented at the Barcelona Landscape Biennale in 2006, at the Sao Paulo Biennale of Architecture in 2007, Galleria Contemporaneo in Mestre, Italy in 2008, at the Thessaloniki Biennale of Art in 2009, and at the Gyumri Biennale of Art in 2010.

He was a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University, and has also lectured at the Architectural Association (AA London), and at the School of Visual Art in N.Y. He published 1 book in French and 2 books in Greek, as well as many articles in the architectural press. He has spent the last fifteen years focused on poetical theory in architecture and art.

IRON CHEF FLUX: Saturday, February 23rd, 6 – 8 pm
Location: Flux Factory, 39-31 29th Street, Long Island City, New York 11101
Cost: free for the entertainment! $5 for a sampling of food!

Flux Factory celebrates the closing of our group show, anything ANYTHING, with a live competition of Iron Chef Flux. Come watch our most talented Flux chefs compete head to head in an intense culinary battle as we turn up the heat in the kitchen!

Featuring the extraordinary culinary talents of Stephanie “You’re out of your element” Avery, Nick “I’ll have my cake and eat yours too” Cregor, Aliya “Beyond Consumption” Bonar, Theodoros “The After Burner” Zafeiropoulos, and Georgia “This takes the cake” Muenster.

The event begins at 6:00 PM, when we reveal the secret ingredient. Cooking starts promptly at 6:30 and ends exactly one hour later. Each dish will be judged based on flavor, presentation, creativity, and Fluxiness, and then the next Iron Chef Flux will be determined by our celebrity judges Paddy Johnson, Steven Stern, Harriet Taub, Tracy Candido, and David Shapiro.

READ ABOUT OUR CELEBRITY JUDGES

Iron Chef Flux from Flux Factory on Vimeo.

Theodoros studied painting in the School of Fine Arts, Aristoteleian University of Thessaloniki, and participated in the Erasmus program at the University of Barcelona. He graduated from the MFA program of the School of Fine Arts in Athens in 2006. Theodoros graduated from the MFA program at the School of Visual Arts in New York as the recipient of the Paula Rhodes Memorial Award, Fulbright Scholarship, Gerondelis Foundation Scholarship, and the and Al.Onassis Foundation Scholarship. He is currently a PHD candidate in the School of Architecture, University of Thessalia, Volos, Greece.

Theodoros was previously in residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture ME USA. He has presented 4 solo exhibitions and has participated in many international group shows, projects and residencies in Greece, Europe and USA.

Untapped Cities is a proud media sponsor of No Longer Empty’s latest exhibition “How Much Do I Owe You?” at the abandoned Bank of Manhattan in Long Island City. For exclusive Untapped Cities/No Longer Empty events, sign up here.

It may have been freezing outside, but the mood was certainly getting fiery in the last edition of Death Match, held last Thursday at the “No Longer Empty: How Much Do I Owe You?” exhibition space in The Clock Tower at Long Island City. While I did know that this was a debate in which three experts would battle it out over the issue of arts funding, I didn’t realize that the audience would be in on this game, making their presence felt through opinionated hoots, angry whistles and an assortment of other sprightly noisemakers.

The setting for the discussion seemed oddly appropriate–we were seated in the former Bank of Manhattan building, surrounded by artworks that were related, in some way or the other, to money and its connection to society. Large kites made out of currencies loomed over the audience, with the dispassionate faces of Mao and Lincoln looking down on us. On the wall behind us, the colorful collage made out of scratch-off lottery tickets was a beautiful distraction. The huge bank vault downstairs was awesome, but so were the installations around it, especially the hissing serpents clad in business suits.

It was in these striking surroundings that Steve Lambert, visual artist and the co-founder of the Center of Artistic Activism, Alexis Clements, writer and fellow at the Cultural Strategies Initiative, and Deborah Fisher, executive director of A Blade of Grass, debated on the topic of arts funding and how it affects artists in today’s world. The discussion, which was hosted by Flux Factory, was moderated by the non-profit art collective’s Christina Vassallo and Douglas Paulson, both of whom held a tight rein on the proceedings by wielding aids including “smackdown” cards, sputtering fog machines and more.

The debate touched upon a variety of topics, with all three speakers putting forward thought-provoking points for discussion. Clements, for instance, talked about how MFA programs have created a divide of sorts in the art world by placing artists with MFA degrees on a higher creative pedestal than the rest, a practice that, according to her, was certainly not benefiting art and its creation. While Lambert said that he advised people to enroll for a MFA only if they didn’t have to pay for it, Fisher readily admitted that her years in the program—which she didn’t pay for—were the “best three fucking years” of her life.

From bemoaning the practice of paying female artists less than their male counterparts to dueling over communism and its possibilities, the debate was a lively one, and the audience was given a number of interesting and intriguing points to think about. Passive spectators were hard to find here, with the audience ready to throw in flaming questions, boisterous support and, at times, angry protests. But the moderators kept the discussion on track by restricting the time allowed for every speaker, although there were a few instances when I wished they would just stand back and let the theatrics explode.

As the night drew to a close, Clements and Fisher were selected by the audience as the winners of the debate. Although this event marked the end of the Death Match series, the No Longer Empty exhibition continues until March 13, and will be presenting a number of other programs in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for Untapped Cities exclusive events, like our tour into the abandoned bank. Entry to the exhibition and the events is free, and a full schedule of the programming can be obtained at the No Longer Empty website, or by simply following them on Facebook and Twitter.

Get in touch with the author @thisisaby.

Opening reception & performance: Saturday, February 16th, 6 pm – 9 pm
Exhibition dates: February 16th – 24th
Closing event, IRON CHEF FLUX: Saturday, February 23rd, 6 – 8 pm
Hours: open weekends, 12 – 6 pm or by appointment (call 413.441.6632)
Location: Flux Factory, 39-31 29th Street, Long Island City, New York 11101

OH Flux. Flux Factory is a complex web that encompasses an artist collective, an international residency program, a non profit organization, a packed schedule of exhibitions, events, and educational initiatives, and above all, an expansive, intentional, ever-transitioning community. anything ANYTHING highlights Flux’s diverse composition and the exciting and tricky balance of all of its ambitions. This group exhibition features artists who have taken part in the Flux community this past year, showcasing the individual work of both residents and administrators in the gallery. At 7:30 PM, the audience is invited to participate in a group performance led by Maria Pecchioli as part of her project Plotting the Urban Body. We’ll also be putting our culinary abilities to the test in a live Iron Chef Flux battle, welcoming a new bathroom to the house by collaborating on a new installation inside. Come out to Flux and see all that happens under this roof!

Participating Artists: Alex Nathanson (US), Aliya Bonar (US), Anne Duk Hee Jordan (DE), Christine Laquet (FR), Constantin Hartenstein (DE), Douglas Paulson (US), Irene Lee (US), Jaime Iglehart (US), Lena Hawkins (US), Marco Castro (MEX), Maria Pecchioli (IT), Shona Masarin (AU), Stephanie Avery (CA), Theodoros Zafeiropoulos (GR) & Filippos Oraipoulos (GR), Ye Taik (US). Curated by Carina Kaufman (US) and Mille Højerslev Nielsen (DK).

Read more about New York City’s most unique residency program here.

IRON CHEF FLUX: Saturday, February 23rd, 6 – 8 pm
Join us Le Cafe De Flux, where four Flux culinary experts will compete for the title of Iron Chef Flux. Our resident chefs will be presented with a surprise secret ingredient, and will have one hour to make and plate their dishes. Our audience and celebrity guest judges will then taste and decide who will be crowned Iron Chef Flux. Doors open at 6, and the competition commences promptly at 6:30.

Jaime Iglehart teaches a video-making workshop

Perhaps you’re an organizer with a great idea for a unique series of talks? Maybe you’d love to share the joy of canning pickles with the world? You might be a film editing genius who wants to show others the ins and outs of Pro Tools. We’re seeking proposals to join the ranks of previous Flux Factory educational initiatives.

Over the past year and a half, Flux public programs have included: The Future of Your Neighborhood: Who Decides?, Flux Death Match, Domestic Revolution, Summer School, and Back to School. These are just a few examples of Flux’s themed initiatives that provide discussion-based and/or hands-on learning to our audience. And like everything else at Flux Factory, our educational programming can be a collaborative result.

Specifically, we are seeking:

1. Ideas for multi-week educational initiatives.

Please send your program or workshop series concept, along with a detailed list of potential participants/workshop leaders, essential resources/materials required to pull it off, a realistic budget, and a timeline for implementation. Be sure to include supporting info to describe your concept and need for this kind of program.

2. Ideas for single workshops that make use of Flux’s resources (wood shop, communal kitchen, rooftop, co-working office, gallery space) and be offered for a low cost or free.

Send your workshop idea, basic lesson plan, min/max number of students, budget, materials, and scheduling preference. Please keep in mind the following perquisites for teaching: an appropriate base of knowledge in your field of instruction; tremendous enthusiasm for your topic; and an ability to communicate your knowledge to a group of students, and support their learning. We may be able to piece together a cohesive workshop series based on individuals’ contributions.

Send your materials no later than MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18th, 2013 to education[at]fluxfactory[dot]org. Applicants will be notified by the beginning of March. Flux will provide production and marketing assistance, strategic meetings, access to Materials for the Arts, and a small honorarium.

Example proposal

Flux Death Match

Flux Factory’s educational programming is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Curatorial Residency

Community Organizer Residency

Flux Artist-In-Residence (FAIR)

Flux Factory’s Artist-in-Residence program is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Throughout the evening Jason Eppink (Flux Artist-in-Residence), Kelly Goeller, and Adrienne Silverman will run The Reanimator Lab, a community-sourced, hand-drawn animated GIF filter. Long-time collaborating duo Lena Hawkins (Flux Artist-in-Residence) and Champagne Sequins will discuss their special working relationship and most recent art baby that is a mix of print, illustration, and experimental sounds. Sean McIntyre will present “Things I’ve Done To My Classmates”: a collection of his NYU ITP class projects that unwittingly involved his classmates. Flux Artist-in-Residence Christine Laquet will screen film excerpts and talk about what she’s working on while at Flux. Reid Bingham will present, “99 Cent 4 Life,” which touches on the multi-national industrial ballet that has made Dollar Stores possible, as well as artist projects, hilarious mistranslations, and other insights revealed by these ubiquitous store fronts of Brooklyn.

We’ve also put together a sweet deal that will help you reveal your secret crush and take the object of your affection on an adventure: for $5 you can buy a Fluxygram, made by our very own Flux Artists-in-Residence and delivered anonymously by Cupid&Cupid, to let someone at Flux Thursday know you care. You’ll automatically be entered to win our date-centric Raffle Booty, which includes a Couples Massage Workshop at Shag in Williamsburg, Dinner-for-2 at The Burger Garage in LIC, a 2013 Sexy (Wo)(Men) of Flux Calendar, and a few other romantic surprises.

Image of “You should never forget the jungle” by Christine Laquet & Robert Steijn, courtesy of Stéphane Pauvret.

Phuc [pronounced “phook”] Le’s serene photographs rep his motto: Live simply and pack light.

Le will be exhibiting selections from three distinct series in the show Forced Entry on Jan. 18 at the Flux Factory in Long Island City, where he is one of about a dozen artists in residence.

On Friday when I stopped by Le’s studio, he was wearing the electric blue sweatshirt his father sports in the series called “So Hip!” featuring his dad wearing Le’s favorite clothes.

“They are portraits of my dad, but also of myself,” he said pointing to a photo of his dad in a navy blue poncho. “I remember exactly where I was when I bought that poncho.”

Le, who was born in Vietnam, says he easily connects and becomes attached to inanimate objects. He keeps only a few pieces of clothing and wears them until they are full of holes. They help to comfort him when he floats from his adolescent home of Los Angeles to his adult home of New York City and everywhere in between.

“LA is my high school sweetheart, but New York is my grown-up love affair,” he said.

When Le began photographing his father in his LA oasis, complete with mango trees and a thriving herb garden, it served as a social commentary on the clothing made by American Apparel and the type of thrift-store-salvaged clothing Le and his friends loved — and how it became mainstream.

“But then I felt at one point I had out-grown it or was robbed of it,” he said. “Every part had been picked and sold.”

His works have stepped away from this angst and the viewer can see that. The simple portraits of his father show a man at ease with his environment — not smiling or frowning, just content.

Le said beyond a portrait of his father and of himself, the series is a mature way to rekindle a relationship with a father who had been absent for a good chunk of his younger years. Forcing his way into this relationship gave him one inspiration for the show’s name — Forced Entry.

“It’s a play on words,” Le said. “I feel like I have to fight to create, force myself into people’s bubbles, into a relationship with my dad, into the art world — whatever that means. I could go into some sappy stories, but I won’t. Also the gay community might see it for its sexual context.”

The second series speaks to forcing his way into a stranger’s life, if only for a few hours.
Le used the iPhone Grindr app, which uses the gadget’s GPS to locate other gay and bisexual individuals in the area, for the photo series “Grindr Test.”

Le acknowledges the potential dangers and the more illicit side of the app, but he also sees it as a way for a “subcommunity to find a comfort — to maybe not feel so alone,” he said.

When these men pop into his virtual bubble and he likes how they look, he asks if he can photograph them.

“The photographing process is a lot like hooking up,” Le said. “A lot of emotions have been invested. Some say no, some ignore me, some say I’m weird.”

But if the connection happens, it lasts — in a way.

He has never had a lasting relationship with any of his subjects and only once has he met up with the guy after the photograph, but he remembers them and their portraits live on in the collection.

Le orchestrates his meetings so that he takes his subject’s picture around 5 p.m. when the light is just right. He also uses a shallow depth of field that gives his works an almost 3-D quality.

The men have a totally comfortable, peaceful look, much like the photos of his father. Similarily there are not many items in the picture besides the subject.

Even the way Le takes the photo is simplistic, with a camera that can only take two photos.

The third series, “Expedition: Southwest,” show pieces of Le’s clothing in the barren desert landscape of the region.

Given that his clothes have been with him for years and each item holds a distinct memory, these landscapes serve not just as pretty pictures, but as self-portraits of a sort.

“I’m against the feeling of assimilating and focus instead on the land more than people because the land’s approval is all I need,” he added.

Forced Entry
When: Friday, Jan. 18, 6 to 8 p.m.
Where: Flux Factory, 39-31 29 St. Long Island City

Tickets: Free, fluxfactory.org

What’s your dream job and how do you achieve this goal? Flux Factory artist in residence Aliya Bonar wants to know, and during a weeklong after-school camp she plans to find out.

From Feb. 4 to 10 the seamstress-extraordinaire will serve as den mom to a group of girl scouts, a team of artists and one Queens resident to go through dream-job boot camp.

(The Queens resident has not been selected. If you want to participate email Bonar at aliyarose@gmail.com.)

“I will plan a regimen of after-school activities. The idea is that youth and artists are used to thinking outside of the box and might come up with some great ideas,” Bonar said as she walked through the Flux Factory space. Planters on the Manhattan- facing deck light up when the flora is thirsty. An array of cacti that a founding Fluxer donated to the organization when he died of old age rings one of the upstairs bay windows. A “Fluxmas tree,” a conifer tree made of wood and draped with tinsel and yarn, is placed in the kitchen. The rest of the space is filled with chairs in varying states of disrepair, unfinished artworks and “relics of past art shows — pretty much there is art in all the cracks.”

After the week of camp, Bonar will turn the Flux Factory gallery into a clubhouse of sorts, which the community can explore on Saturday Feb. 9. The camp will be recorded in many ways to be viewed in the gallery. The following day Bonar will lead a discussion about the quest for a dream job.

“I’m very interested in how to make people feel comfortable,” said Bonar, who holds a degree in socially engaged art from Hampshire College. “People aren’t always safe and comfortable and it’s hard to talk about that. Inside a tent with cookies maybe they will.

“It’s about making space to interact in a new way,” she said.

Bonar, who by day teaches children how to sew, has created many mountainous landscapes stitched together out of pastel comforters like a scene from the movie “The Science of Sleep.” Dotting the mountains are little fabric trees and silk flowers she has collected over the years.

“It’s very earnest and utopic,” she said. “As much as I want to be hard-hitting, my art always leans this way, but if it helps people open up that’s good.”

Also inside her Flux Factory studio is a tent made out of the same worn bedding that she forges mystical hills out of. When the viewer crawls inside, those same hills line the interior and little stars dangle from the fabric ceiling.

For two months she created a new flag with a word of the day embroidered in the middle. The banners dangle from her studio’s wall.

Bonar brought the project to a group of children at the Families in Need General Preventative Program facility at the Southern Queens Park Association, who now have their own string of motivational flags.

However, creating a physical space where Bonar and others are comfortable is more than the walls. Lately the artist has experimented with her own idea of a powersuit.

“It may be a sweat suit or a rain jacket,” Bonar said.

For her it’s a series of blazers adorned with trinkets she has collected — a series of toothbrushes, keys that remind her of a time she locked herself out of her apartment, little plastic figurines and silk flowers.

“These memories empower me,” she said.

“Every day we dress as a new person, it’s all made up,” Bonar said. “It’s how you are perceived, and you can dress however you like.”

PowerSuit Camp

When: Reception Saturday, Feb. 9, from 6 to 9 p.m., public discussion Sunday, Feb. 10, from 2 to 5 p.m.

Where: Flux Factory, 39-31 29 St., Long Island City

Tickets:Free

fluxfactory.org

aliyarosebonar.com/powersuit-camp

At PowerSuit Camp we don our Executive Suits and Take Things Seriously – including your biggest dreams and aspirations.

Over this past week a team of artists and Girl Scouts have met every afternoon – working together to explore their Dream Jobs. They’ve invented different dance moves-of-the-day, interviewed our Flux neighbors, made zines, and sewed, glued, and taped personalized PowerSuits together. You can peak in on what’s been going on at camp here.

Everyone is invited to experience what was created during PowerSuit Camp at the public presentation and exhibition, Saturday February 9th from 6-9pm. An open house and discussion about the project will take place in the gallery on Sunday February 10th from 2-5pm.

About the artist:
What would your most courageous self would do, say, and wear? Aliya Bonar’s work challenges you to answer that question for yourself. The “PowerSuit” your most courageous self wears is a personal talisman, relating to your body, history, and biggest dreams. Aliya has worked with Creative Time, Flux Factory, Elsewhere Collaborative, The Wassaic Project, the Laundromat Project, and the Eileen Fisher Leadership Institute to teach workshops and produce events that engage everyday people in making authentic connections.

Laquet has exhibited work both nationally in France in the Museum of Fine Arts, the FNAC (Fond National d’Art Contemporain), the FRAC Pays-de-la-Loire, the L.A.I.T. Art Center, the Modest Art Museum, the Adhemar Castle Art Center, and the J.d’Arc Art Center, and internationally at the Gyeonggi Creation Center (KR), the Contemporary Art Museum Aloisio Magalhaes (BR), the Galeria (PL), and the BUG gallery (TH) amongst others.

Christine Laquet is a Flux Artist-in-Residence with the support of Pays de la Loire Region / Nantes City and French Institute.

www.dukhee.de

Mille is planning to do her master thesis on artistic collectives and collective art production, so she will also spend her time at Flux collecting material and inspiration.

Mille is the founder of the loving collective In Words Drown I, established in 2012, which so far have hosted a large scale exhibition, curated by Mille, at a library in Roskilde. A book was also released and the contributions were all related to the exhibition in very different ways. The main focus of In Words Drown I is on cross-aesthetic aspects of contemporary literature and how to build new bridges between the writer-the reader, the reader-the work and the writer-the work. In Words Drown I is very ambitious on behave of the contemporary literature and we think it is time for the literature really overstep the boundaries of the book by taking new aesthetic form(s). The question of our investigation is: In literature, is there an artistic core that can be expressed independently of form?

Mille also works for Roskilde Festival Arts, promoting the artistic program of the festival and for KUNSTEN.NU, which is a web based news paper on contemporary art. Further more Mille used to work in Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art (Copenhagen) as a communicator and she has organized different festivals and cultural events in Copenhagen. She started out as an assistant for former Flux-residents, Katrine Malinowsky and Hannah Heilmann, on their common exhibition project and social experiment, Party and Lost (Den Frie, summer 2010), which consisted of 8 women from 4 different artists group.

Mille is interested in cross-aesthetic and interdisciplinary aspects of contemporary art, collectivity and gender issues.

Sometimes, she expresses herself artistically through drawings, films and texts.

Date + time: Thursday, January 24th, 8 pm – 10 pm
Location: 29-27 41st Avenue, Long Island City

Flux Factory is pleased to present its last edition of Flux Death Match, a feisty debate series in which opinionated experts lay down their thoughts, and put their foot in their mouths over hot button issues. Spontaneous quips, grisly “smack downs,” and a punishing fog machine are the name of the game. But in true action fashion, the final blow comes from the audience.

Steve Lambert, visual artist and co-founder of Center for Artistic Activism; Alexis Clements, writer and current fellow at Cultural Strategies Initiative; and Deborah Fisher, Executive Director of A Blade of Grass, will tangle over the art worlds’ most scarce resource: CASH. Where should it come from? Who gets it? And what should they do with it?

This fourth Death Match, Arts Funding: Follow the $$$$, is Flux Factory’s contribution to No Longer Empty’s How Much Do I Owe You? exhibition which focuses on value and exchange. The event starts at 8:00 pm with an open bar and reception for the panelists and audience members. The debate begins at 8:30 sharp and will be followed by a Q&A session, after which the audience will determine the winner. In keeping with the topic, high stakes are at risk: the winner takes all presenter honoraria and distributes as s/he sees fit.

The series is organized and moderated by Douglas Paulson and Christina Vassallo and is generously supported by our main sponsor AT&T. Additional funding is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Forced Entry is a one-person photographic and video exhibition that features all new works from Phuc Le’s three continuing projects: So Hip!, Grindr Tests, and Expedition:Southwest. Using non-linear narrative imagery that’s part fashion and part mythology, Le explores identity and relationships with family, community, and physical space.

About the artist: Focusing on social structures, mainly human connections and relationships that exist in his multi-faceted consciousness, Phuc Le makes chromogenic prints through a performative approach towards portraiture—utilizing a combination of analog and digital photography. Being part participant and part observer, he explores the limbo space between an insider and an outsider of cultures, gender, and systems. Though his work is ever evolving in ideas and media-of-practice, he is presently fixated on: technology in relation to sub-communities, the collective formation of a New-American identity, and trending culture in mainstream and underground media. Born in Vietnam (1985) and developed in Orange County/Los Angeles, Le is currently living and producing work in New York City. His Flux Factory residency and the exhibition Forced Entry is sponsored, in part, by the New York Community Trust fellowship.

This month it’s an all Flux Artist-in-Residence cast: Stephanie Avery will explain how her art and adventures are guiding her toward becoming a “proper lady.” Alex Nathanson will be performing Rat King (Performance), with violinist Dylan Neely, a multimedia project exploring the paranoia that accompanies sharing your living space with vermin. Maria Pecchioli will present her work, including projects created with her Florence-based collective, Fosca, and her Milan-based collective, Radical Intention. Marco Castro will speak about his work as an artist, curator and designer of cultural experiences in order to explore healthy and sustainable lifestyles. Anne Duk Hee Jordan will present Metrotopie, a project she recently created for Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin.

Image courtesy Maria Pecchioli.

Bring a date, bid on some art, and help support one of the hardest working art collectives in NYC.

We’re so excited for Wednesday’s Not-So-Silent Auction, and you should be, too. We’re going to have a great mix of art, food, and fun. We’d like to take a minute to send some virtual hugs and kisses to our sponsors—without them, our night would be a little less spirited.

First off, we’re going to have the world famous Kimchi Taco truck parked right outside. They’ll be outside before the event, so feel free to chow down on some Korean BBQ on before heading inside for the auction.

Once you’re in, we’ll have hors d’oeuvres and all the cocktails you’ll need to wash them down. We’ve got savory: mini-pizzas and snacks from Mike’s Pizza; appetizers from Bottino and Zampa; artisan cheese from Consider Bardwell Farm; and fresh bread from Tom Cat Bakery. Then, straight from Long Island City, we’ve got sweet: Bartleby & Sage has given us brownies, macaroons, and other rich desserts fitting the season and Court Square Diner has given us the joy of pie and baklava. Your bellies will be happy.

Our bartenders are currently devising some top-secret signature cocktails for the night, but what we can tell you is that we’ll have Sailor Jerry spiced rum, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and Perry’s Tot gin generously donated from the NY Distilling Company. For all you beer drinkers out there, we’ll have Lagunitas. For all you wine drinkers out there, we’ve got that, too.

Of course, you should stay for reasons other than the treats, but we’re thankful that we’ve been given so much this year by our wonderful sponsors. If you haven’t already, buy a ticket to this year’s event!

Purchase Tax-Deductible Tickets Today.

Tickets can also be purchased by check, sent to:
Flux Factory
39-31 29th Street
Long Island City, NY 11101

If you have questions about purchasing tickets or would like to volunteer, please email corinna@fluxfactory.org

Flux Factory’s 2012 Not-So-Silent Auction & Gala is supported by our liquor sponsors, Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum, NY Distilling Company, and Tito’s Handmade Vodka; beer sponsor Lagunitas Brewing Company; food sponsors Bottino, Zampa, Kimchi Taco, Tom Cat Bakery, Court Square Diner, Sage General Store, and Mike’s Pizza; and media sponsors ArtCat, IDIOM, RMI Printing, and The Brooklyn Rail.

During her Flux Factory residency, Maria Pecchioli will develop Plotting the Urban Body. P.U.B. builds a methodology of observation and diagnosis of the urban and relates it to the peculiar characteristics of different territories.

Flux Factory exhibitions expand the creative experience beyond the typical gallery setting and result in the creation of newly commissioned work. Conceived as arenas of exchange, our exhibitions take artists outside the confines of their studios for direct engagement with the public, where together they use the Flux Gallery and urban space as sites for critical intervention.

To apply for any of the exhibitions listed below, email exhibitions@fluxfactory.org with the exhibition title in the subject line and attach a single PDF (5MB or less) containing your project proposal, support sketches or images, examples of similar work, and your resumé or biography. See individual exhibition descriptions for deadlines and notifications. If you wish to apply for more than one exhibition, please send a separate email for each and make your application specific to the exhibition.

Please visit some of our 2012 group exhibitions for reference: Banquet for America, iSpy, Public Trust, and Bionic Garden.

Untitled (As of Yet)
On display: September 2013

This exhibition takes its point of departure from events that first appear to be catastrophic, but eventually open the door to new thoughts, practices, and opportunities. How do we react to large-scale events that we’ve never experienced before, such as a power outage throughout the eastern seaboard or a volcanic eruption that leaves hundreds of flights canceled and even more people stranded? What is it like to go outside of the parameters of a familiar system?

Flux invites artists to create works in response to the breakdown of routine and displacement as a potentially fruitful phenomenon.

Deadline for applications is no later than April 1, 2013 at 11:59pm; applicants will be notified of our decision on April 30, 2013.

Curatorial Carte Blanche
On display: November 2013

Curatorial Carte Blanche is a blank slate for one visiting collective to present an exhibition in line with Flux’s ethos of cultural enrichment through community-building. This could mean a group exhibition, installation, performance series, tour, a combination of these things, or any number of possibilities, as long as the project aptly fits Flux Factory’s mission for supporting the creation of experimental collaborative work.

Deadline for applications is no later than May 1, 2013 at 11:59pm; applicants will be notified of our decision on May 31, 2013.

THE SELECTION PROCESS IS CLOSED FOR THIS SHOW.
The Wonder Cabinet
On display: March 2013

Flux Factory invites artists and writers to collectively draft a story of an adventurer, and to physically create his or her fantastical collection of curiosities in the Flux Gallery. This exhibition will be an exploration of modern day myth-making and will include opportunities for the audience to influence the narrative.

We are seeking artists of all disciplines to give form to our hero/ine’s adventures, constructing the cabinet itself to the works inside. Could one of the collaborators – artists or writers – be you?

Deadline for applications is no later than January 15, 2013 at 11:59pm; applicants will be notified of our decision on February 1, 2013.

THE SELECTION PROCESS IS CLOSED FOR THIS SHOW.
Kitty City (working title)
On display: May 2013

Kitty City aims to re-imagine the urban planning process by partnering architects, city planners, artists and designers with elementary school students to design and construct a model for a humane and accessible city. Over a series of four weekend workshops, we’ll develop a visioning process, and collaboratively build our city. Once our city is constructed, we’ll flood it with kittens during a ribbon cutting ceremony and host an animal adoption drive.

This is an experiment in pedagogy and inter-generational collaboration. We are looking for a diverse group of facilitators, makers, and cat-lovers for this development. We are also seeking enthusiastic students who would like to draw, design, and build.

Deadline for applications is no later than February 1, 2013 at 11:59pm; applicants will be notified of our decision on February 28, 2013.

Flux Factory’s 2013 Exhibitions program is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Bring a date, bid on some art, and help support one of the hardest working art collectives in NYC.

Come party with us and celebrate an exciting year of programming at Flux Factory’s Not-So-Silent Auction. This spirited cocktail event will feature a silent auction of over 75 artworks by NYC’s rising stars and celebrated artists who reflect the scope of Flux Factory’s extensive community.

We will honor Martha Wilson, artist and founding director of Franklin Furnace, and Shelley Rubin, founder and chair of A Blade of Grass, for the work they are doing to support artists who engage with diverse audiences and interests. Expect a bountiful open bar with free-flowing cocktails, tasty hors d’oeurves, jpg light portraits in The Rainbow Machine by Double One Design (Reid Bingham & Sean McIntyre), aesthetic palm readings by Bean Gilsdorf, and a steady stream of entertainment provided by DJ We Are Architects and our emcee Daupo. There will be a dedicated team of “knock-off artists” working the crowd and making customized copies of auction items on demand, including Stephanie Avery, Louise Barry, Aliya Bonar, Doulgas Paulson, Angela Washko, and Alex Young. We’ll also debut a new Flux logo silk screened on tote bags, designed by one of our very own Flux Artists-in-Residence, as well as our 2013 Sexy (Wo)(Men) of Flux calendar.

Participating artists: The silent auction will include artworks by Daniel Bejar, Eric Doeringer, Carla Gannis, Jason Lazarus, Michelle Levy, John Powers, William Powhida, Ward Shelley, SWOON, Martha Wilson, and many others.

Click here to view the entire list.

Purchase Tax-Deductible Tickets Today.

Tickets can also be purchased by check, sent to:
Flux Factory
39-31 29th Street
Long Island City, NY 11101

Not-So-Silent Committee Members: Amanda Angel, Anita Durst, Antonina Simetti, Barry Hoggard, Carlo Lamagna, Chris Day, Claire Sexton, Deborah Fisher, Doreen Jakob, Ed Woodham, Elizabeth Larison, Ewa Bartos, Hilary Bertisch, James Wagner, Jayne Drost, Julia Kaganskiy, Kara Meyer, Jake Pratt, Krista Saunders, Manon Slome, Michelle Levy, Morgan Meis, Nato Thompson, Nick Griffin, Nora Gomez, Oriana Leckert, Paddy Johnson, Paul D. Miller, Perry Chen, Petrushka Bazin Larsen, Rado Petkov, Risa Shoup, Sally Szwed, Scott Hirst, Steffan Olausson Partridge, Stephanie Pereira, and Steven Santo.

If you have questions about purchasing tickets or would like to volunteer, please email corinna@fluxfactory.org

Flux Factory’s 2012 Not-So-Silent Auction & Gala is supported by our liquor sponsors, Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum, NY Distilling Company, and Tito’s Handmade Vodka; beer sponsor Lagunitas Brewing Company; food sponsors Bottino, Zampa, Kimchi Taco, Tom Cat Bakery, Court Square Diner, Sage General Store, and Mike’s Pizza; and media sponsors ArtCat, IDIOM, and The Brooklyn Rail.

Here comes a sexy stocking stuffer from Flux.

This year Flux wants to help you give the best gift ever: our very own 2013 (Wo)(Men) of Flux calendar. It’s a sexy yet antiquated way to manage your schedule, featuring the nearly nude men, women—and one puppy—who are part of Flux Factory.

Photographer and 2012 Artist-in-Residence Alison Nguyen posed our models in Flux Factory’s studios, communal spaces, and rooftop garden, all the while showing off our institutional assets. Catch a glimpse of residents, staff, and members of our extended community like you’ve only seen during Flux kitchen dance parties.

This limited edition wall calendar spans January 2013 to January 2014 and indicates important Flux dates like Crepe Day, Flux Thursdays, and Fluxgiving. It is printed on 100# silk text paper stock, has stapled binding, and measures 17″ x 11″ when opened. We’ll even sign it if you ask nicely.

Order your calendar today for $30 + tax and shipping & handling. Or pick one up at the 2012 Flux Factory Not-So-Silent Auction on December 19th if they haven’t flown off the shelf by then!

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