Opening Reception: Friday, May 18th, 6-9 pm
Gallery Hours: May 19 – 29, 12-6 pm

Flux Factory is pleased to present Wojciech Gilewicz, Residency Unlimited, a solo exhibition by our latest resident through Flux Factory’s partnership with Residency Unlimited. During the course of two months, Gilewicz cleaned Flux Factory as a way to explore the overlap of immigration status and the paradoxes of artistic success. The artist has written the following statement about his project at Flux Factory:

As a Polish immigrant, I have always had to face the truth about the most popular jobs for first generation Polish immigrants in the US, namely cleaning and construction. As an artist, I have firsthand experience with these jobs, in order to secure funds for my living expenses and – above all – for the production of my artworks. As Wojciech Gilewicz, a private person, I have always sought cleanliness, order, and harmony.

In March and April 2012 I cleaned the Flux Factory building, to explore the intersection of immigrant labor and artistic practice. My goal was not to play the role of a cleaner but to really become a cleaner. I decided to start my project as an anonymous person, working in a building as a sort of a trade worker. In fact I was also trying to limit theoretical approach of any kind to my project and concentrate instead on the simple physical action of changing and organizing the space.

Could cleaning be seen as a tool for beautification and changing reality, in a way that art can sometimes do? How would this project be perceived in terms of art? Can you judge cleaning and its outcome in the same way you judge art? Can a cleaner become an artist as much as an artist can become a cleaner?

My project in Flux Factory, as a two month part-time unpaid job, and the exhibition “Residency Unlimited” were made possible thanks to a grant from the Polish Ministry of Culture. This adds yet another layer to the discussion about the paradoxes of the art system today, its institutions, networks and possibilities that artists have to create and exhibit their work.

In addition to video of his cleaning project, Gilewicz will also show two other video works, Bat-Yam (2009) and Shanghai (2008). Wojciech Gilewicz’s residency in New York is supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland. For more information on the artist, visit his site.

Since 2003  she been part of the collaborative Randi & Katrine – with fellow artist Randi Jørgensen (b. 1974). The works by Randi & Katrine  are a result of their common interest in combining architecture, objects and narration, and a fascination with monumental scale installations in which a dynamic exchange between the viewer and a specific space are emphasized.

Anthropomorphic houses, artificial gardens, mechanical ships and vernacular architecture are recurrent themes in their large-scale works. Recently the artists have made a number of psychadelic public sculptures around Denmark and South Korea, including a teapot garden house and a pinewood forest-themed playground. They have also been commissioned for a number of public works, including a recent award to create the facade of a Danish public ferry. In 2012 they presented their exhibition “The Tourist Gaze” at Flux Factory.

Flux Factory is pleased to present its latest edition of Flux Death Match, an initiative that takes online debates into real-space at the Flux gallery. Four highly opinionated panelists will illustrate their arguments with images, web references, and other materials in a rapid-fire way that challenges convictions on critical issues. Audience members can expect spontaneous responses, frustrated rebuttals, and even permitted “smack down” sessions.

In this second Flux Death Match, our panelists will argue over The New Aesthetic – a recent visual culture meme born of a Tumblr account by James Bridle last year, and propelled into heated on- and off-line discussions by a SXSW panel in March, an essay by Bruce Sterling on his Wired.com blog, and subsequent responses on The Creators Project. It has been visually documented through fashion, architecture, and technological artifacts, and described as “an eruption of the digital into the physical” and “an attempt to understand not only the ways in which technology shapes the things we make, but the way we see and understand them.”

Artist, technologist, and NYU ITP Resident Researcher Greg Borenstein; media artist Kyle McDonald; interdisciplinary artist Carla Gannis; and architecture, tech, and media historian Molly W. Steenson will converge at Flux Factory in order to duke out the finer points of NA. Namely: is it really a new thing and how important is it? What are its boundaries? And, is James Bridle’s recent closure of his New Aesthetic Tumblr account the NA death knell?

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.

Flux Death Match: The New Aesthetic is organized by Fluxers Douglas Paulson & Christina Vassallo and moderated by Julia Kaganskiy of The Creators Project.

The Flux Death Match series 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.

Yes, I know Flux Factory is in Queens. For what it’s worth, they actually started in Brooklyn—in the Monster Island building—and they’re one of the longest-running art collectives currently active. More importantly, though, they are, individually and as a group, terrifically creative, sensationally ambitious, and just unbelievably fun. I change the standards of what I’m going to cover on this site all the time, but the best way to sum it up is this: If I think something is fabulous, I want to cover it. And Flux Factory is fabulous.

Housed in a converted greeting card factory in Long Island City, Flux has fourteen art studios and a staff of six. That’s around twenty people give or take, and in 2011 they held seventy-five different events (here’s a sampling), including art shows, installations, performances, screenings, workshops, lectures, and more. Everything at Flux is done, per their mission statement, with a “rigorous commitment to the collaborative process.” They have four major thematic group shows each year, involving art, performance, and community events, utterly transforming the gallery space each time. Recently there was “iSpy,” a “participatory collaborative game show” that encorporated guessing games, livestreaming, piñatas, feminism according to World of Warcraft, and tweets from the Flux toilet whenever it was flushed. Before that was “Banquet for America,” a month-long extravaganza that saw the gallery redone as an entire village, with a fifty-foot banquet table-cum-catwalk down the center and each artist manning his or her own shop, “selling” things like donuts and haircuts and feminist karaoke (I meant to sing “I Will Survive,” but I ran out of time). In addition, there are dozens of smaller projects, including educational initiatives, resident solo and group shows, guest-curated projects, Flux Radio, and a monthly potluck. There was a death match debate to discuss how artists are interacting with the #OWS movement. There have been lectures on social hijinx, interviewing skills, and kayak-building.

Have I given you a sense of the incredible creativity and diversity of the artists in this group? This is why we live in New York, you guys, or at least why I do: to be able to see and participate in this kind of expectation-thwarting, envelope-pushing, rambunctious creative glee. And listen: the Fluxers are always looking for new friends, new volunteers, and new collaborators, so please, go on up to Queens and check them out. But first check out my interview with Executive Director Christina Vassallo, Residency Director Douglas Paulson, Press & Curatorial fellow Georgia Muenster, and artists Jason Eppink, Adrian Owen, and Richard Nathaniel.

brooklyn spaces: Is there a unifying theme among the artists here? How do you decide who gets to have a studio?
Christina: We’re not focused on a specific genre or discipline. It’s really people who are interested in working collaboratively; that’s our main criteria.
Douglas: Flux is an intentional community, and we rely on consensus-based decision making. The artists choose the next residents, conceptualize and generate the work for the shows, figure out who’s doing the chores. We discuss everything, and everyone has the right to object or bring new terms. Of course, there’s never unanimous agreement on anything, but after a discussion, the people who might not necessarily agree at least feel like they’ve had a chance to be heard. One thing that comes up a lot is the idea of “fluxiness,” which is a word we all know but no one can actually define. It’s the way we describe whatever it takes for someone to endure being part of this crazy mess.
Adrian: I think it’s wrapped up with the idea that we often take on ambitious projects that we’re not quite sure how we’re going to do and then figure it out as we go.
Georgia: Fluxiness to me is a cross between ingenuity and impossibility. And the color green.
Adrian: We want to make sure we’re perceived as professional as well as fun. So that’s part of fluxiness too, knowing that we have the heads behind all these crazy things we’re trying to do.
Jason: Yeah, but also? Fuck professionality. I think it’s more being able to execute what you can and pulling it through somehow. A lot of our peers don’t execute at the level we do. We actually make shit happen.
Georgia: We do so so so much. It’s kind of preposterous how much we do.
Adrian: Getting a fully functional administration rolling has allowed us to produce so much more.

brooklyn spaces: Do you find any conflict between the organization required and the creative space of doing these sorts of projects?
Adrian: Yeah, that’s what we’re navigating all the time. It’s like herding cats trying to organize artists.

brooklyn spaces: Jordan from Silent Barn said exactly the same thing about musicians. Tell me about a favorite event or exhibit you’ve seen or been a part of here. I came to the opening of “Banquet for America” last month, and it was absolutely incredible.
Christina: That show was particularly fluxy in that it required extensive participation from the artists and the audience, with all the artists’ shops and performances. The more serious side of the show was an anti-capitalist statement about how mom-and-pop shops and independent retailers are getting pushed aside by big-box retail stores. Another show I loved was “Sea Worthy,” which, in typical Flux fashion, experimented with the boundaries of what an exhibition could be. It was in conjunction with the Gowanus Studio Space and EFA Project Space, and Swimming Cities contributed as well. We paired artists with boat builders to make a whole flotilla of artworks, and we brought members of the public around the New York City waterways. Again there was a serious discussion beneath the presentation: The water is the largest open space in New York City, and we wanted to show people that there are ways we can reclaim it.
Douglas: One of my favorites was “Congress of Collectives.” It was completely different from these sorts of spectacle-heavy shows. We invited representatives of more than thirty collectives from the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East, and we set up projects, discussions, panels, and talks designed to explore what it means to work collectively.
Georgia: One of my favorites was “Going Places (Doing Stuff),” our bus tour series, where you’d get on a bus and not know where you were going.
Jason: That’s what I was going to say too!

brooklyn spaces: I didn’t know that was a Flux project. Where were some of the places that you took people?
Jason: This was a three-summer project. The first year I went on three of them, and it blew me away, it totally made my summer. I wasn’t part of Flux then, but when I heard they were doing it again, I had to get involved. My friend Matt Green and I led one called “Quest for Immortality.” First we went to visit the Self-Transcendence 3100, which is a 3100-mile foot race around a single city block, started by the late guru Sri Chinmoy. Then we met Ashrita Furman, who holds the most Guinness World Records, and we set our own records, like “most people flossing their teeth with the same string of dental floss at once.”
Adrian: I beat some fifteen-year-old girl’s record for speed-eating a bag of Skittles.
Jason: Next we went to visit a monument of Crete that this old guy has been building in his yard in Bay Ridge, and then we went to Staten Island and climbed these abandoned liquid natural gas towers. We finished at Lemon Creek State Park, where this guy has been building rock cairns along the beach for about ten years. It used to be this trashy, gross place, and he has completely transformed it.
Adrian: I have two favorite Flux experiences: “The End of the End of the End,” the last show at the previous space, and “Housebroken,” the first show at this one. They were absolute mayhem from a curatorial standpoint, but just so much fun. Every single room had something happening in it at all times. There were like 200 artists involved in each. Every nook and cranny was programmed. It was intense and awesome.

brooklyn spaces: Did you perform or curate or make something for them?
Adrian: My metal band White Limo played both, and at “Housebroken” I sang opera in the shower with the door open and the shower curtain closed, wearing gold trunks. One girl actually pulled back the curtain because she probably thought it was a recording, and she just screamed and ran out.
Jason: Another awesome thing about that show was that everyone was invited to give us something we could keep, as a way to have artists help us finish the space. Most of the artworks that you see around this space came from that show.
Richard: I think my favorite experience is the monthly Flux Thursday. It’s all the people you know and tons of people you don’t, and everybody’s showing work and drinking and talking and high-fiving.
Georgia: Those are potlucks. We love to feed people.
Richard: Also the Greenpeace stuff was dope. We worked with them to sell real estate on top of black coal mountains. Just light stuff, you know.
Adrian: It was the performance-art portion of a project for a coal awareness tour they were doing with one of their Ice Breakers. It was in Chelsea Piers, right next to the driving range. One of our artists got hit by a golf ball.

brooklyn spaces: So when an artist has a studio here, is it only about working collectively?
Douglas: No, everyone here is pursuing their individual art and their own career in one way or another as well.
Christina: Through the years we’ve gotten really good at focusing on the collaborative aspects, and now we’re starting to get better at nurturing the individual simultaneously.
Douglas: Flux used to be a lot of people in their early twenties who just got out of school, but now it’s older, more serious. We had a Fulbright Scholar here, we have career artists. But we’re extremely conscientious about maintaining the existing community. We’ve dedicated one studio to people who have had a residency here already, so there are always former residents coming back. That’s extremely important, and it’s something that we’ve been very conscious of as we’ve transformed to a formal residency program: how to maintain that kind of cohesive fluxiness.

brooklyn spaces: How do you think Flux is affected by being in Long Island City?
Christina: There are so many things we get here that we wouldn’t get anywhere else. If we were in Manhattan we’d just be another group fighting for the same resources and the same eyeballs and audience.
Adrian: It definitely makes it harder to attract foot traffic, though. Queens holds such a stigma—even though it’s easier to get here than to most of Bushwick. It’s like, “Did you say Queens? I don’t know, man.” So that’s a big hurdle.
Georgia: It’s somewhat absurd to me; there are dozens of arts organizations out in Long Island City. Sculpture Center, Noguchi, PS1, Fisher Landau, Socrates Sculpture Park, Museum of the Moving Image…
Douglas: And the fact that we’re not in Brooklyn has allowed us to make our own identity rather than being just another Bushwick space.
Jason: I feel like if we were in Brooklyn we’d be overrun. I think it’s kind of to our advantage that people think it’s not as easy to get here. The people who want to get here, get here. It’s already an awesome, big community.
Adrian: We’re starting to get a few relationships locally. We’ve been here long enough, and people are starting to figure out what we’re up to.
Jason: I love that the people from the neighborhood see us as these crazy art people. We get to be that for a lot of New York. My first experiences of Flux were like, holy hell. This is much better than art. It’s wacky and playful people doing really exuberant things. I actually think that gets back to what fluxiness is. I think that’s sort of our legacy.
Adrian: I totally agree. That’s exactly what happened to me. I had a friend who lived in Queens and I was like “What? I’m not going over there.” And then Flux asked my band to play, so I made the trek—and I’ve been here for seven years. My eyes were opened in a whole new way. I was like, “You can do this?”
Georgia: It’s the same story for me too. The sense of playfulness is just unmatched anywhere else.
Jason: There’s no context for this sort of stuff in mainstream culture. To be exposed to this happening? It’s amazing.

Current Flux Artists-in-Residence Elisa Harkins will perform with music and animation, while Angela Washko will screen “Don’t Leave Me” and present image documentation from performances taking place inside of World of Warcraft. Flux Artist-in-Residence and NYCT fellow Alison Nguyen will give a presentation on her series “Irreversible Damage” which opens at the neighboring Oracle Club on May 11th. Former Flux Artists-in-Residence Anders Bojen & Kristoffer Ørum and Randi & Katrine will talk about their respective works currently on display at Flux Factory, The Tourist Gaze and AutoBiography.

Bring drinks or something delicious to share!

image courtesy Angela Washko.

Opening Reception: May 11th, 7-10 pm
Exhibition Dates: May 11th-18th, 2012
Hours: by appointment only, contact alison.c.nguyen@gmail.com
Location: The Oracle Club, 10-41 47th Ave., Long Island City, 11101

The newly opened Oracle Club in Long Island City, Queens presents Irreversible Damage, a solo exhibition of works by Flux Factory Artist-in-Residence Alison Nguyen, from May 11th-18th.

The site-specific arrangement of art is primarily comprised of Nguyen’s panoramic prints created with deceptively simple photographic devices such as plastic “toy” cameras and handmade pinhole cameras constructed from readymade objects. In the series Nguyen ignores the numbered frames of the film, treating the negative as a continuous image and bringing to light instances of time which fall outside the purview of conventional narrative form.

Nguyen’s in-camera multiple exposures reveal overlapping scenes; flickers of light; faces, shadows, and shades of color that at times merge in and out of abstraction. The stories told by each piece are slippery. They braid and unfold variously depending on where you stand in relation to the large, scroll-like prints which wrap around the corners and crevices of the space.

Cultural critic Brian Miller writes, “The clock is an unreliable narrator. In Alison Nguyen’s multi-layered narratives, it guides us to memories we’ve forgotten we ever had, to wonder wheels and wristwatches, to plates of unfinished breakfast and plaster saints, to luminous spaces somewhere outside of the demesnes of time. Like silent filmstrips loosed from the reel, Nguyen’s photographs dare us to form a story. But this plot we’ve been given is unmapped terrain; it is where the fiction slips away from the reality, where past cleaves from present to future…

…Most urgently, these beguilingly translucent images implore us to trace the material of our own lives; our findings are bound to be mutable. We can go in search of lost time, we may stand stolidly in the present or pine for the future, but Nguyen incisively seems to choose none of the above. If time is linear, then that line forms a circle; if it is a journey, then we are always en route. Perhaps it is nothing more than a trace, the faintest smear of lipstick lingering on a worn collar. We can only say what Nguyen shows us: that time exists; it is present, watchful, irreversible.”

About the Artist:
Alison Nguyen graduated from Brown University in 2009 with a B.A. in Literary Arts. Since, she has exhibited widely at both non-traditional and traditional venues including the The Tribeca Project Space, The Flux Factory, The Rogue Space, The Red Filter Gallery, 440 Gallery, The Target Gallery, The Westside Rifle & Pistol Range, and Gallery Hanahou. She has received awards from Mensa, Nikon, The Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, Brown University, and the New York Community Trust.

Alison Nguyen is currently an Artist-in-Residence at the Flux Factory in Long Island City, where she balances her studio practice with art direction and design. Irreversible Damage is sponsored, in part, by Nguyen’s New York Community Trust fellowship through Flux Factory.

Episode #5 is from Aarhus, Denmark with love. Vinyl Richie took requests from the visitors of the Flux Factory’s Infamous Outpost, located in the Spanien19c gallery.

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 March 31 – May 5, 2012

In the spring of 2012, thirteen artists will create a site-specific installation and temporary consulate of Flux Factory titled The Infamous and Only Somewhat Ambassadorial Outpost of the Semi-Legitimate Nation of Flux at Spanien 19C in Aarhus, Denmark. Constructing a miniature version of the Flux Factory space within the gallery, the artists will serve as Flux ambassadors on foreign soil, all the while inhabiting the space and performing “business as usual.”

The Infamous Outpost is intended to create broader cultural exchange between Flux Factory and the extended artistic, educational, and cultural communities of Aarhus and greater Denmark, exploring the nature of networking and mutual pedagogy. At Spanien 19C, Fluxers will construct memory-based facsimiles of Flux Factory’s communal and private spaces, inhabiting the installation as hyperbolic self portraits in a reconstruction of collective rituals. During open hours, they will perform as exaggerated versions of themselves, with meetings, educational programming, and participatory public events: a structure akin to role playing, improvisational performance, and the voyeuristic nature of reality television. This format provides viewers with the opportunity to actively engage the collective within the context of the performance. As emissaries, Fluxers will meet with local arts organizations, schools, and museums, to facilitate workshops, artist talks, and lectures that will broaden connections between cultural institutions around Aarhus, including the local Art Academy and Kunstskole Bifrost.

With the aim of connecting regional institutions to one another and New York City, The Infamous Outpost calls into question the authority of a foreign organization arriving with the intention of providing any form of authoritative insight into its methods of artistic production and practice.

Click here to see a video-a-day of our experiences in Aarhus, created by Flux Factory’s very own Jaime Iglehart.

Participating artists include past and present Flux Artists-in-Residence, Flux staff members, and friends of Flux: Adrian Owen, Alex Wolkowicz, Alex Young, Angela Washko, Christina Vassallo, Georgia Muenster, Ian Montgomery, Jaime Iglehart, Jean Barberis, Matthew-Robin Nye, Richard Nathaniel, Tom Watson, and Wieteke Heldens. This Flux Factory project is organized by Georgia Muenster & Matthew-Robin Nye and supported by DIVA.

RELATED EVENTS
March 15, 6pm
Flux Factory on Relational Aesthetics at Aarhus University

March 19, 10:30am
Collective Processes at Det Fynske Kunstakademi

March 23-24
Flux Factory at BGK Holsterbro

March 30, 8pm
Flux Factory’s Drag Race: The Grand Pram Slam

March 31, 6-10:00pm
Grand Opening, Spanien 19C

Every Thursday, March 15 – May 3, 8:30pm
Flux Thursday

April 11 & 19
The Bifrost Collaboration Continues

April 12
Flux visits Den Jyske Akademi

April 16 & 23
Flux at Egå Gymnasium

April 25-27
Raft-making! with Bureau Detours

April 26
Flux Factory at Godsbanen, Redux / Flux Thursday

May 3
Closing Party

Aliya graduated from Hampshire College with a BA in Socially Engaged Art.

Opening Reception: Friday May 4, 7pm – late
Gallery Hours: May 5, 6, 10 – 14, 12-6 pm

In the video installation AutoBiography, Anders Bojen and Kristoffer Ørum rewrite their biographies according to a mathematical system that continuously generates new unstable interpretations of their identities and explores the autobiography as a phenomenon.

Over the last couple of years Bojen and Ørum have worked on rewriting the history of specific places in order to rethink their meaning. In this project they combine mathematics with popular psychology in order to rewrite their own biographies and reinvent themselves in ways that they could not have scripted. Through images, narration and custom-designed software, their biographies merge into a new unstable hybrid identity.

A video projection shows an endless number of alternative biographies for Bojen and Ørum based on family photographs from their suburban middle class backgrounds. Images of school, parents, friends, pets, and more are all mixed together. Following the model for the development of personality created by Erik H. Erikson (1902 – 1994), a voice-over narration continuously chronicles the formative experiences and phases in the artists’ lives. The algorithmic video accounts for all of the things which, according to popular psychology, define our personalities.

The ways in which artist stage themselves autobiographically, from the reverence for artistic genius to the focus on identity politics in contemporary theoretical discourse is central to the reception of art today. AutoBiography creates a field of tension between the causalities of a mathematical system and the search for identity through past experiences. An impersonal system determines the description of the self – a simultaneous undermining and enactment of the role and persona of the artist.

This exhibition runs concurrently with Randi & Katrine: The Tourist Gaze.

SEPTEMBER EXHIBITION: Public Trust
“Public Trust” will examine the relationship between our formal and informal cultural institutions and their audiences. Through sanctioned and guerrilla interventions in New York City and beyond, this project questions how institutions are delivering knowledge and if they meet the needs of contemporary society. By subverting the staid practices employed by our most popular pillars of culture, we hope to introduce challenging work, form new audiences for each site, and have existing audiences experience something unexpected.

We are seeking proposals that celebrate the crucial roles public institutions fill, as well as their strategies to engage visitors and stay relevant to their lives. We invite artists to reveal the hidden values of our institutions, generate new social relationships, and explore and/or exploit the assumptions that our institutions and their patrons make.

We encourage artworks and actions that can be displayed within the Flux Factory gallery or that occur at public locations, such as: city tour buses, Staten Island Ferry, Times Square, New York Public Library, Bronx Zoo, Roosevelt Island gondola, Central Park, Hayden Planetarium, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and any other cultural destination you wish to celebrate and/or improve.

Art historical landmarks and watershed moments that influenced this exhibition concept include: the cancellation of Hans Haacke’s solo exhibition in 1971 at the Guggenheim Museum as a result of the aritist’s research into personal connections between the museum’s trustees; Fred Wilson’s work as a museum guard; the historic agreement that ensures the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon access to the Willamette Meteorite at the American Museum of Natural History for ceremonial purposes; Occupy Museums; and the Guerrilla Girls’ response to Kynaston McShine’s 1984 statement, “Any artist who is not in my show should rethink his career.”

The exhibition will take place in September, 2012. To apply, email exhibitions@fluxfactory.org a single PDF (5MB or less) containing your project proposal, support sketches or images, examples of similar work, and your resumé or biography, with “Public Trust Proposal” in the subject line, no later than May 31 at 11:59pm. Applicants will be notified of our decision on June 10, 2012.

Opening Reception: Friday May 4, 7pm – late
Gallery Hours: May 5, 6, 10 – 14, 12-6 pm

In ”The Tourist Gaze” Copenhagen-based artist duo Randi & Katrine have created a large-scale installation exploring the context of the Flux Factory gallery and its history as a former greeting card factory. The installation is comprised of a grid of buildings, with each rooftop containing its own world of unique pleasure, seduction, and playfulness.  The viewer is invited to walk between the structures and watch each narrative unfold throughout the city. On one roof an abstracted pinewood forest grows, while the next roof displays ”Twistee Treat,” a fictional pineapple factory with a fabricated history.

These sculptural works by Randi Jørgensen (b. 1974) and Katrine Malinovsky (b. 1976) are a result of their common interest in combining architecture, objects and narration, and a fascination with monumental scale installations in which a dynamic exchange with the viewer and a specific space are emphasized.

Randi & Katrine have worked collaboratively since 2003. Anthropomorphic houses, artificial gardens, mechanical ships and vernacular architecture are recurrent themes in their large-scale works. Recently the artists have made a number of psychadelic public sculptures around Denmark and South Korea, including a teapot garden house and a pinewood forest-themed playground. They have also been commissioned for a number of public works, including a recent award to create the facade of a Danish public ferry.

This exhibition runs concurrently with Anders Bojen & Kristoffer Ørum: AutoBiography.

Habitable Spaces Crew

Shane Heinemeier and Alison Ward left Flux in January to begin a non-profit arts and agricultural project titled Habitable Spaces in Kingsbury, Texas. Their goal is to build a sustainable farm and artist residency program that will act as a trading post, research outpost, and an experiment in collective living that will include public hands-on training sessions. They hope to be ready to receive their first artists in September, 2012. Habitable Spaces has just launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the construction of a kitchen pavilion.

Hannah Heilmann is curating a group show in Copenhagen titled Prune in the Sky at Toves Galleri Contemporary Workout Space that opens April 13th, and includes works by Wieteke Heldens (Netherlands), Anna Lundh (Sweden) and Matthew-Robin Nye (Canada).

Meg Keys has been accepted to Seniors Partnering with Artists Citywide (SPARC), a community arts engagement that places artists-in-residence at senior centers across the five boroughs of NYC.

Chen Tamir is co-curating a group show titled Emotional Blackmail with Markús Þór Andrésson at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery in Kitchener, Ontario. The show is open from May 9th – July 8th, 2012.

Douglas Paulson and the Parfyme crew will be re-imagining and re-filming King Kong in the Tingbjerg community.  It’s part of the Visit Tingbjerg project that’s happening in Copenhagen this May.  There’s a very dubious posting on wikipedia about Tingjberg.

Katrina Neumann has just been awarded a Master of Fine Arts Diploma through Tufts University in collaboration with The School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She will be taking residence at the Elsewhere Collective from May to June.

Janne Höltermann is the Luther Gregg Sullivan Visiting Artist at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, and is currently teaching courses in Digital Media.

Angela Washko is one of four recipients of the 2012-2013 Terminal Award, granted to specific projects in new media and internet based art. She will have a solo exhibition at Terminal: Austing Peay State University Gallery in Clarksville, TN to present her new work The Founding of the ‘Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness’ in World of Warcraft, time TBA. In May 2012, she is participating in LEVEL  at The Arts Center for the Capital Region.

Tom Watson will be in residence at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia at their campus in Medellin from mid-April to mid-May. He plans to document and work in response to the practices to the inhabitants of the Moravia neighborhood, who sustain the community by recuperating recyclable materials from the municipal dump.

Flux Factory is pleased to present The Future of Your Neighborhood: Who Decides?, a series of monthly workshops that discuss how members of the public can actively engage in neighborhood development. The objective of this series is to inform New Yorkers about strategies for self-organizing to enact positive change in their neighborhoods and in the city as a whole.

The program kicks off on May 16 with the workshop Affordable Housing: How Do We Get What We Need?  Have you ever wondered just what “affordable” housing is, anyway?  Or how you can get involved in bringing more affordable housing to your neighborhood?  Jackie Moynahan of the north Brooklyn-based advocacy group Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (NAG) will help you navigate the complexities of New York City housing, and learn how to become an effective advocate for better affordable housing options in your neighborhood.
When: Wednesday, May 16, 7 – 9pm
Where: Flux Factory, 39-31 29th St., Long Island City

In conjunction with Flux Factory’s Hanging Gardens exhibition in June, we’ll present Reclaiming Vacant Land for Community Use with Paula Z. Segal of 596 Acres.  The 596 Acres project focuses on identifying vacant City-owned property and working with communities on coalition building, political action, and ultimately, influencing the City to turn over control of this property for use as gardens and open spaces. Learn how to find that special lot in your life and where to go from there.
When: Wednesday, June 20, 7 – 9pm
Where: Flux Factory, 39-31 29th St., Long Island City

The Future of Your Neighborhood: Who Decides? will continue in future months with workshops on: urban agriculture, historic preservation, sustainable transportation, and other topics near and dear to New Yorkers.  If you have an idea for a workshop, please email christina[at]fluxfactory[dot]org.

This educational initiative is organized by Christina Vassallo, Douglas Paulson and Lacey Tauber. It is supported, in part, 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.

*top image by Nick Normal, bottom image by Christina Vassallo

Dates: April 21, 22, 28, 29, 6pm – on
Location: Flux Factory, 39-31 29th Street, Long Island City, Queens

Flux Factory presents iSpy, a participatory conceptual game show that brings together live streaming video, consenting audiences, and unsuspecting participants for a rollicking good time through the misuse of surveillance.

The federal government has unrestricted access to your email, local police departments can track your phone’s location without a warrant, and we freely post our daily minutiae on Facebook anyway. Instead of lamenting that we’re sleepwalking into a surveillance state, iSpy repurposes these technologies for an interactive theatrical experience.

Come ready to team up and win subversive challenges involving live aerial surveillance, piñatas, World of Warcraft, and many more surprises. Each night, two featured players carry networked cameras in public space, beaming video back to the Flux gallery-turned-game show studio where they coordinate with the rest of their team to score more points. The team with the highest score wins a rare and special prize…

The show is totally free and runs only four times, beginning promptly at 6pm and followed by an after party each night.

iSpy includes games and concepts from Angela Washko, Clay Ewing, Eva Rose Cohen, Flux Factory, Matt Parker, Meg Keys, Mike Kelly, Mike Lacher & Mikala Bierma, Leif Percifield, and Liz Barry; emceed by Matt Levy and Keith Haskel; production design by Lena Hawkins, Christopher van Doren & Alison Nguyen; sound design by Collapsed Wave Media with Nick Cregor; tech design by Grant McDonald; produced by Jason Eppink & Mike Kelly.

This project is supported, in part, by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Materials 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.

1: felt in or as if in the internal organs of the body: deep
2: not intellectual: instinctive, unreasoning
3: dealing with crude or elemental emotions: earthy
4: of, relating to, or located on or among the viscera: an internal organ of the body; especially : one (as the heart, liver, or intestine) located in the great cavity of the trunk proper.

Or, what Merriam-Webster.com might describe as “visceral.”

He’s super delighted and grateful to be at Flux Factory.

Yondonjamts’s practice mainly focuses on works on paper. He tackles issues surrounding the changes affecting Mongolia’s society and economic development. The nomadic culture and its symbiotic relation to nature is disappearing  as the mining of natural ressources (gold, coal) are being exploited without effective control. He is currently developing a body of drawings that critiques the exportation of falcons in Mongola to Saudi Arabia (currently 240 per year).  Taking an ironic perspective, his work questions how these factors are played out in the physical and psychological space between tamed and untamed worlds.

Yondonjamts’s works have been exhibited in Mongolia and abroad. His work is currently part of the exhibition  ”Magische Geshichten” at the KunstvereinGraz, Regensburg (Germany) on  view until May 5th 2012 . In summer 2012, his work will be featured in an  exhibition with New York artist Jessica Segall at the Mongolian National Modern Art Gallery Ulaanbaatar/ Mongolia. Previous exhibitions include Haus der Kunst in Munich/Germany, Werkraum Godula Buchholz in Denklingen/Germany, Mongolian Embassy in Berlin/Germany, Museum of Modern Art/Hofstallungen in Vienna/Austria, Cologne Art Fair 21 in Germany, Arsenale in Venice/Italy. He is the recipient of various awards including Djerassi Resident Artist Award 2012 (CA, USA),a  grant from Karin-Abt-Straubinger Foundation 2009 & 2011(Stuttgart, Germany) and the ART OMI International Artists Residency 2010 (Ghent, USA). In 2010, he was a visiting artist in the residence program at the Cité International des Arts in Paris (France).

Tuguldur Yondonjamts is supported by Residency Unlimited within the framework of the organisation`s partnership with Flux Factory. His residency is made possilble with funding support from the Open Society Foundation, NY and the Arts Council of Mongolia.

April 12th, 8pm+
Please join us for a cozy edition of Flux Thursday this month.  Dinner starts at 8 in the kitchen, and then around 9:30 we’ll head to the gallery for artist presentations.

This month, friends of Flux Stephan von Muehlen and Paula Z. Segal will discuss their recent trips to Brasil, where they documented the expansion of the Brasilian middle class and met people struggling for rights to the land on which they live. Then, it’s an all Flux cast: New York Community Trust fellow Ye Taik will read an excerpt from his unfinished essay, “Ordinary – extra,” to gain feedback from the audience. Christina Vassallo will show evidence of Flux Factory’s recent exploits in a foreign land, and Nick Cregor will debut his ONE MAN BAND.

Bring drinks or something delicious to share!

Ioanna graduated from Athens School of Fine Art with distinction. She has
received a scholarship from the state ‘IKY’ foundation for her MA at the Royal
College of Art. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions including
IPCNY International Print Center New York, New Prints 2012/Winter.
NurtureArt 2011 Benefit, Chelsea Art Museum, New York.

http://www.drawingcenter.org/viewingprogram/share_portfolio.cfm?pf=5363

• Article about Flux and The Infamous Outpost
• Exhibition opening announcement at Spanien 19c gallery
• Photo of us preparing for our project during the opening of the new art center, Godsbanen
• Our cozy Flux Thursday events in Aarhus

Sonya Schönberger, born 1975, studied Social Anthropology in Berlin and Zürich, video art at the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and Experimental Media design at the University of Arts in Berlin, where she finished her studies as a fellow of Prof. Thomas Arslan.

In her current work, she is meeting eyewitnesses from the time of World War II and conducts personal interviews with them, exploring the cultural memory of the German society. She follows these witnesses and memory-keepers into the everyday life of the Third Reich: onto the battlefields, in prison camps, into devastated cities, on their escapes and into their after-lives.

In her older works, projects and films, Sonya Schönberger asked questions about the home (Heimat), identity, ancestry and tradition. Through her research with witnesses from World War II she has managed to consequently extend these topics. The impacts and traumas of the war on Germans transformed not only for the immediate affected generation the question of Heimat and national identity, but also tremendously for the following generation. By meeting victims and perpetrators, Sonya Schönberger tries to shed light into this neglected subject matter. Up to this point, the recorded reports have been collected, transcribed and archived.

(monologue from an interview with witnesses of WW II

Date + time: March 27th, 2012, 7 pm
Location: Flux Factory, 39-31 29th Street, Long Island City, Queens

Postage stamp, something to write home about is a performance by Nooshin Rostami.  In her work she studies the threats of habituation to beliefs, rituals, and customs  in human society. In her performance she presents the audience with a seemingly torturous, yet widely adopted practice which constitutes a crucial part of what is known as conventional “beauty.”

By providing the audience with convenient conditions to witness an agonizing performance, she aims to remind one of how we become dismissive to an act of brutality the sole raison d’être of which is to fit in with the values of our society.

“Postage stamp, something to write home about” is one of the popular “styles” of Brazilian epilation of women’s pubic hair.

Our very first Flux Death Match gladiator-debators got in the pugilistic spirit well before convening at the Flux gallery on March 21st for an historic art world melee. On the day of the event, Paddy Johnson allied herself with Hrag Vartanian in a debate-til-the-rhetorical-death against John Powers and William Powhida in this blog post on Art Fag City. There was also some trash talking on Twitter, where Hrag Vartanian promised to “eat their hearts” and John Powers chided that “reading about Occupy Museum in preparation for tomorrow’s #deathmatch is pissing me off.”

Our audience chimed in during the event via Twitter, too. Some highlights include:
@jen_dalton accused us of false advertising – “Flux factory Art and OWS #deathmatch surprisingly high-minded and un-deathy.”

@clairenicole – “@hrag asks ‘what if Rosa Parks had been a performance artist?’ Major #deathmatch impact question.”

@museumnerd – “Artists are poor people that rich people like and are not afraid of.”-@starwarsmodern at the @Flux_Facrtory #deathmatch.”

@manbartlett – “Strange that @starwarsmodern keeps saying ‘they’ and ‘you’ and then follows that up with how he wants #ows to look.”

@manbartlett – “Paddy says there’s a moral imperative for artists to get involved with the Occupy movement. #deathmatch.”

@dylanschenker observed, “@starwarsmodern is wrong. Nobody should say what #ows is about. Narrows Focus of movement. Must learn to sacrifice for nothing.”

@mariuswatz – “#deathmatch takeaway pt.2: How did it even get this messed up in the first place unless artists are complicit in their own demise?”

We at Flux were too fearful of the blood, guts, and gore to declare a real winner, so we determined all four panelists winners with a silent display of twinkle fingers. In case you missed it, you can hear the Flux Death Match broadcast on free103point9 on March 31 from 7 – 9 pm.

(photo courtesy Claire Sexton)

Date + time: March 21, 8pm
Location: Flux Factory, 39-31 29th Street, Long Island City

Flux Factory is pleased to present Flux Death Match, a new initiative that takes online debates into real-space at the Flux gallery. Conceived as lively discussions between influential members of the art, tech, and political communities, panelists will illustrate their points with slides, web references, and other materials in a rapid-fire way that will challenge convictions on critical issues.

In this first Flux Death Match, art critics Paddy Johnson of Art Fag City and Hrag Vartanian of Hyperallergic and artists John Powers and William Powhida will face off in a heated debate. The panelists will argue over the strategies artists use to engage with the Occupy Wall Street movement and confront the concentration of wealth and power within the art world. Johnson and Powers have a history of online skirmishes, most recently a Twitter debate that resulted in an 18 part discussion posted to YouTube on the merits of the recent ArtPrize city-wide competition in Grand Rapids, MI. Vartanian and Powhida have traded barbs publicly, both in person and through various online platforms; their epic disagreements have undoubtedly shaped the discourse surrounding the NYC art scene.

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 and will be followed by a Q&A session, after which the audience will determine the winner.

Flux Death Match: Art & OWS is organized and moderated by Douglas Paulson & Christina Vassallo.

Listen to the podcast of this debate!
Intro

Paddy vs. John

Hrag vs. William

Announcements

Round Table Discussion

Audience Weighs In

The Flux Death Match series is generously supported with funding 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.

A.I.R. Time is an exhibition that presents a dynamic array of work made by spring residents at the continually evolving Flux Factory. Though Flux residents are frequently highlighted for their participation in collaborative projects, A.I.R. Time is an occasion to exhibit works they have produced independently while participating at Flux Factory. The selected artworks span a wide variety of visual expressions in diverse mediums made by an international group of residents. Some of the participating artists have been part of Flux Factory for over a year and some for less than one month.  Come join us in a celebration of the individual practices that are cultivated under Flux’s collective roof!

Participating artists: Jesper Aabille (DK), Lena Hawkins (US), Wieteke Heldens (NL), Lehna Huie (US)*, Alison Nguyen (US)*,  Ditte Lyngkӕr Pedersen (DK), Theodoros Stamatogiannis (GR), Angela Washko (US), and Tom Watson (UK).

Read more about New York City’s most unique residency program here.
If you’d like to make an appointment to view the exhibition outside of weekend hours, please email info[at]fluxfactory[dot]org.

A.I.R. Time events
Friday, March 16, 6 pm – 9 pm
Preview & Opening Party powered by flux cocktails and DJ Vinyl Richie

Sunday, March 25, 1 pm – on
Endless breakfast and talks by exhibiting artists

*indicates New York Community Trust fellow.

The exhibition of timeline paintings provide a people’s history of everything from the development of alternative lifestyles to the evolution of teen culture. Included in the show is Bohemian Tree V1, a version of the silkscreen on vellum piece included in Flux Factorys’ Box Set (which are still available for purchase!) The piece is also featured in a favorable Village Voice review of the exhibition.

Flux Factory is thrilled to be one of the initial recipients of a grant from A Blade of Grass, along with More Art. This year we have been awarded $20,000 for general operating costs and capacity-building initiatives.

Thank you for funding vital cultural production, A Blade of Grass!

Flux TV: March 12th from New Age Beverages on Vimeo.

March 8th, 8pm+

This month, friends of Flux Juan Fernando Morales will perform a short action and Nick Cregor will show us his recent work.  Then, it’s an all Flux resident cast: Adrian Owen will sing four Italian arias and solicit feedback from the audience on the consistency of his vocal quality, and Lehna Huie will debut a performance with special guest Shanti Devi.

Bring drinks or something delicious to share!

His work is rooted in the belief that art and performance is a language unto itself without borders or boundaries, and is a vital way to initiate peaceful intercultural communication and to develop means of conflict resolution. He is not especially attached to the concept of national identity.

He has had the pleasure of working with No-Where NOW-here, The Internationalists, Vangeline Theater, Around the World in 24 hours Festival, Performa 09, Williamsburg ArtneXus, AMDat, Center for Performance Research, Collaborations in Dance Festival, Triskelion Arts and public venues including United Nation Plaza. Most recently he performed Kate Whoriskey’s project in Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. His work is in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

He tries to define  ”Day” when he gets up and “Night” when he falls asleep.

Date: Sunday, February 26th 2012, 4 – 6 pm
Location: Flux Factory, 39-31 29th Street, Long Island City

SP Weather Station will host a Special Preview for the 2011 edition of the SP Weather Reports, presenting new works and works-in-progress by its most recent group of collaborating artists.  The public is welcome to join past and current artist participants for a reception and conversation at Flux Factory about this ongoing publication series.  Portfolios from all years will be available for view and sale (including 2011 pre-orders) and refreshments will be served.

Now in its fifth year, SP Weather Reports is a collated portfolio published annually by the artist-collaborative SP Weather Station.  Each year, twelve artists (or artist groups), one per month, are invited to ‘report’ on the weather data taken by the SPWS rooftop station, installed on the roof of Flux Factory in Long Island City. This open-ended assignment may be interpreted strictly or loosely; past artists have created prints, booklets, drawings, audio files, photos and video.

The 2011 SP Weather Reports feature works by: (January) Emcee C.M.; (February) Glen Einbinder; (March) Rafael Hidalgo Múgica; (April) Naomi Miller; (May) Chad Stayrook; (June) Michelle Rosenberg and Howard Huang; (July) Hope Ginsburg; (August) eteam; (September) Paul Kennedy; (October) Adrienne Garbini; (November) Travis LeRoy Southworth; (December) Rick Myers.

Click here for more information on current artists and an archive of past SP Weather Reports.

The event is free and open to the public, come and celebrate with us!  This event is made possible (in part) by the Queens Council on the Arts with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

About SP Weather Station: SP Weather Station is an interdisciplinary project that collects weather data, hosts a Guest Lecture Series, and organizes weather-related publications, events, and exhibitions. For more information please visit: spweatherstation.net

Image: Snapshot of August 2011 Weather Reports by eteam, No day without weather, 2012.

Nguyen graduated from Brown University in 2009 with a B.A. in Literary Arts. Since, she has exhibited widely at both non-traditional and traditional venues including the Tribeca Project Space, The Flux Factory, The Rogue Space, 440 Gallery, The Target Gallery, The Westside Rifle & Pistol Range, and Gallery Hanahou. She has received awards and  residencies from Mensa, Nikon, The Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, Brown University, and the New York Community Trust.

Nguyen’s images have been published in the New York Times, 22 Magazine, La Petite Zine, and will be featured in O.H.W.OW. Gallery Press’ forthcoming book Random Attitudes. Nguyen’s writing has been featured in publications such as Art & Revelry, The New York Times, Juxtapoz online, The Center for Alternative Photography’s Journal, and the Journal of New Jersey Poets.

Tina Helen and Eva La Cour from the Copenhagen-based collective openhagen will join the dialogue on collective practices initiated by Flux Factory at Congress of Collectives in October 2011. openhagen will approach the discourse from an urban politics angle, based on the concept of advanced capitalism and neoliberalism as indexes of the world we live in, yet not descriptive of the situation we find ourselves in. openhagen is engaged in an investigation of the particular situation of everyday life in Copenhagen as an image on a more globalized development. At Flux Factory, openhagen will host a discussion taking off from their particular experiences of (counter-) working in the urban space and most recently within the Danish university system.

Goodman and Gallows will also present tit-bits from research, conversation and speculation. Their work investigates how vagrant folk and legislative law influences the way we navigate space, place and collisions. A wandering English woman (Goodman) washed up after a voyage across the Atlantic interprets an ex-pat American’s (Gallows) schoolboy education to stitch together their patchwork knowledge of the history of American wanderlust. Radicalized by friendship, Goodman and Gallows’ collective formed in a squat in Stamford Hill, pre-Occupy and post UK student movement 2010.

The discussion will take place around a potluck dinner in our communal kitchen. Please bring something delicious to share!

Flux village puppeteer Adam Ende, photo courtesy Alison Nguyen

Taco Night!!! (an opening holiday for Banquet for America): Friday, February 3, 7-11pm

It’s an American tradition, one that many get excited about. And traditions are funny: they start out as one thing, everyone brings something to it, and it changes. Taco Night!!! will show the diversity of America and its tradition through a tableau of food.

Flux will bring the basics: tortillas, rice, and vegan beans. You will bring the rest; in order to eat, you will need to bring a filling. Whatever you like: salsa, meat, vegetables, cheese, sour cream, etc., with enough to share.

While you are there, you’ll be able to meet the Flux village. Later on, we’ll have performances by Adam Ende, Hector Canonge, LuLu LoLo, and Trabajo (with the special collaboration of The Sperm Whale). Taco Night!!! is presented by Jean Barberis and Mark Krawczuk.

Special Flux Thursday: Thursday, February 9, 8pm+

Join us for this month’s Flux Thursday, our monthly potluck and salon… in our town-within-the gallery, as part of Banquet for America! This month, we’ll have dinner at the banquet table and enjoy presentations and performances from artists taking part in the exhibition, including Adam Ende, Hector Canonge, Kerry Cox, and Veronica Dougherty.

This evening is a potluck; please bring drinks or something delicious to share!

Cabaret Extravaganza: Saturday, February 11, 7pm

Join us for a night of performances staged in our artist-built town. The Invisible Kitchen puppet theater will perform The Master of Prayer. Following the show will come fantastic performances by Homo Hasidus, Angela Washko, Veronica Dougherty, Kagero, and the Ruffian Arms.

The Invisible Kitchen presents: The Master of Prayer, a puppet allegory based on the story by Rebbe Nachman.

The Master of Prayer lives in the woods with his followers, singing, dancing, and repenting like crazy.  But he hears of a city of riches where people are valued only according to how much money they have, and is compelled to save these poor idiots from their money-lust. To this end, they depart together on a journey that takes them through many strange kingdoms where some people worship only happiness, others lust, and some even death itself.  They must cross a sea of wine, a river of milk, and a sea of blood before they find their way to the truth.

Featuring traditional and original klezmer music by the beautiful and talented Craig Judelman, with puppeteers Adam Ende (the director and janitor of Jawbone Puppet Theater) and Noah Block Harley (of Tic Toc Laboratories fame).

—

Kagero is a fabulous, eclectic, part-Japanese pseudo-gypsy band, “your local neighborhood urban-gypsophonic, border-jumping, international debtor’s prison groove-loving feel-good band next door.” Kagero regularly travels throughout the New York Metro Area and crawls into the Kazmovan to gig in Jersey or parts North, South or West. The sound has been described as a melting pot of tonalities and rhythms from Asia, the Middle East, South America and Eastern Europe — “Cultural Confusion.”

—

In the basement at the Sweatshop in Williamsburg, five artists gave birth to the Ruffian Arms, a force to be reckoned with.  They combine hard rock melodies with humorous and clever lyrics and package it with an image fully equipped with gender bending costumes that feature high-heeled boots, cheerleader outfits and tiaras. The Gay Mens Social Crisis has said “They add a certain level of raw sexual energy not always front and center in punk music”.  They have been described as “messy joy” by The Imagist, and their music as “unleashing a sonic barrage that overflowed with plenty of punk noise and bravado.”    New York Magazine has said that they are a “glam (sextet) led by an Amazonian redhead……participating in band wide cheers and pom-pom fights while their trashy, punky, rockabillyesque sound kept the room bouncing along.”  The Ruffian Arms have performed widely in New York City, and been selected to participate in several performance festivals, including the New York Makes Music festival, “New Visions and Voices of Queer Culture” with CINEMAROSA at the Queens Museum, Hot Shots at Dixon place, and the “Alpha Women Attack the Lower East Side” festival at Thompkins Square Park.

A Bacchanalian Banquet: Sunday, February 12, 6-9pm

Giustina Surbone presents A Bacchanalian Banquet, our closing event. A Bacchanalian Banquet is a decadent feast, a visual and tactile extravaganza influenced by Greek and Roman saturnalia and Filippo Marinetti’s Futurist Cookbook.

Featuring: Adam Ende, Alan Williams, Amazing Amy, Bismarck Del Castillo, Craig Judelman, David Modello, Hector Canonge, Jazzmine, LuLu LoLo, Morgan Williams, Robin Dann, Stephanie Fribourg, and Theresa Magario

Videographer: Daniel Smyksy

Chef: Nadia Rohrs

This banquet is rsvp-only… and we are no longer taking reservations!

Sponsored by Fairway Market Red Hook, O Ottomanelli & Sons Prime Meat Market, Los Paisanos Meat Market, Raffetto’s, Sahadi’s, and Three Guys From Brooklyn.

WAGMAG, the Brooklyn art guide, has generously donated Pernod Absinthe to the Banquet for America’s opening and closing receptions. Download WAGMAG’s new gallery guide mobile app, The Art & Absinthe Guide to Brooklyn, here.

All events take place at 39-31 29th Street in Long Island City, Queens and are completely free, unless otherwise noted.

Banquet for America is not a feel good slogan for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.Banquet for America is the name of a utopian village inside Flux Factory’s 1,500-square-foot project space. The exhibition will be on view to February 12, 2012. I encourage the public to visit.

The show, according to the exhibition statement, “will explore food as a way of gaining a deeper awareness of oneself within a larger community, beyond sustenance.” To address these issues, Alison Ward and Georgia Muenster, the curators of the project, selected 17 conceptual and performance-based artists to construct and inhabit the gallery for the duration of show. To construct the village, participants have been working round the clock since January 24, give or take a few days. As I write, artist are breaking bread, bartering services, working and hanging out.

At first, I approached it with a certain amount of skepticism and fear. A utopian village that specializes in communal dining is my definition of hell on earth. If I want to feel uncomfortable eating around a bunch of strangers, I will visit my family for Christmas dinner at the Jersey shore.

What is ideal to one person is a trip to panic attack city for me. People living side-by-side, and in some cases, on top of each another, is too close for comfort. Despite living in cities for more than half of my life, I am still a product of the suburbs: I need space. That being said, I had a good time. Banquet for America extracted this oyster from its shell.

Banquet for America is the result of two different ideas that were pitched to Flux Factory’s annual review for show ideas. The first idea, titled “Anthem for America by Ward,” aimed to build a town inside the gallery that would be inhabited by artists. The second idea, titled “Banquet by Muenster,” aimed to facilitate a series of banquets inside the gallery. I applaud Flux Factory’s decision to combine the pitches. Why? The fit is seamless, and the project epitomizes the American spirit of independence, ingenuity and industriousness.

What the village lacks in sophistication it more than makes up in energy, charm, and spirit. The centerpiece of the village is 37-foot-long table, which was built by Adrian Owen, Ian Montgomery, Jason Eppink and Chess Venis. The other participating artists built storefronts and domiciles from odds and ends found in and around the immediate vicinity of Long Island City.

The nature of the makeshift structures recalled the days when my friends and I would troll construction sites for scrap wood to build launch ramps and quarter pipes to skateboard. We’d transform a dead end street in nowheresville into a skate park, and I never wanted those days to end.

The look and feel of the town is Candy Land meets Occupy Wall Street encampment. The layout is conducive to the types of social interactions I generally tend to shy away from: freewheeling, spontaneous and impromptu.

Banquet for America recalled PBS’s Frontier House television series. Like the aforementioned show, Banquet invited artists to build their own home, prepare food and tend to their domicile. It also brought to mind NBC’s America’s Got Talent, but in a good way. Like AGT, Banquet for America uses a variety format to showcase artists from across the spectrum, which features bakers, jewelers, barbers, puppeteers and smørrebrød-makers! They hail from Washington Heights, California, Toronto and Texas, among other places. The heart of the show is creativity, know-how and zeal.

Banquet for America must-see list:

• Angela Washko karaoke booth festooned in breasts. Guests get to choose and sing a feminist anthem, which she downloaded from YouTube.
• Kerry Cox baked homemade Brazilian birthday sweets. I gobbled up a round chocolate ball that was sprinkled in coconut flakes. Swoon.
• Andy Ralph constructed a revolving signpost-cum-oil tower at the entrance of the gallery. It’s the perfect location for either the kissing couple or Charlie Whitman, or bothe.
• Veronica Dougherty is running the barber shop hair salon. Be warned: if you want your toenails clipped, you must clip the toenails of a neighbor.
• Puppeteer Adam Ende created a puppet theater, with overhead “loft” space for sleeping quarters that he is sharing with his son.
• Georgia Muenster is churning out homemade donuts, which were yummy. I go nuts for donuts.

With disparate people coming together to live in a confined space for nine days, I imagine the village could resemble a holding cell at the county jail. The cynic in me wants to condemn the altruism and sense of togetherness inherent in the project as manufactured or make believe. But what am I threatened by?

Sure, clipping a stranger’s toenails will not make ends meet, but it’s silly and it may encourage a conversation or two. And I would be lying if I did not admit that I not only enjoyed my opportunity to sing Pat Benater’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” in the karaoke booth, but also relished it as well.

Banquet for America runs until this Sunday, February 12 at Flux Factory (39-31 29th Street, Long Island City, Queens). The show is open every day from 10am to 10 pm, and the closing Banquet is Sunday, February 12, 6-9 pm. You can also visit Flux Factory’s complete Flickr set with photos from the evolving installation.

JUNE EXHIBITION: Lawrence’s Hanging Garden
Calling all architects, urban planners, green thumbs, seed bombers, urban farmers, permaculturalists, builders, designers, and artists! Flux Factory requests your hacks and innovative approaches toward urban gardening and farming for Lawrence’s Hanging Garden, an exhibition that will debut June 2012.

Flux Factory’s venue houses a unique artist residency program and ambitious exhibition schedule. Our building features over 2,000 square feet of south-east exposed terrace roofs as well as a dark courtyard and a large gallery space. We’d like you to help us turn them into a garden, a social space, and an urban farm.

Lawrence’s Hanging Garden will reflect the diversity of relationships that New Yorkers have with their plants. Projects, installations, and artworks will be displayed in the Flux Factory gallery (naturally dark, cool, protected, insular), on its roof (unpredictable, exposed, bright), and ideally reaching out to the random patches of earth in our neighborhood of Long Island City (ripe with potential). Re-imagine urban spaces both private and public in an effort to bring resourcefulness and ingenuity to our immediate community.

We’re open to any suggestion, but are specifically looking for artists to design a deck, sitting area, shaded area, an outdoor theatre, a composting system, a water catchment system, and a greenhouse. The exhibition will be further enriched by a series of classes/workshops exploring various ideas presented, a gardening residency to maintain the plantworks and installations throughout the duration of the show, and a neighborhood fruit produce exchange.

To apply, email exhibitions@fluxfactory.org a multi-page PDF (5MB or less) containing your project proposal, sketches/images to support your proposal, examples of similar work, and resumé or bio, no later than March 15th at 11:59pm. Applicants will be notified of our decision the first week of April.

APRIL EXHIBITION: iSpy
Flux Factory is seeking proposals from game designers, technical wizards, emcees, performers, set designers, house bands, and all manner of mischief makers! We need your help to create iSpy, a live reality show meets stage show spectacle meets video game that combines game design and theater with the topsy-turvy power of networked cameras in public spaces.

The experience will revolve around players carrying networked cameras in public space, beaming images back to the gallery-turned-theater as they compete to finish absurd challenges with the audience’s help (e.g.: corralling strangers to swing at pinatas, in-store scavenger hunts, and impromptu games of Balderdash on the street). The Flux theater will be rigged with cameras and surprises too, turning everyone into unwitting players.

As an interactive and theatrical game experience, this project is not limited to the gallery. The production of iSpy will be highly collaborative, with all invited creators helping to form events open to the public during the last two weekends of April 2012.  We need collaborators to make mini-games, elaborate scoreboards, 70’s game show-style sets, spectacular lighting design, and surprising interactions, and we need house bands, emcees, actors, technical crew, facilitators, and much more to make it happen.

To apply, please submit the following to fluxfactory.ispy@gmail.com

I) A short proposal that details your conceptual or logistical involvement, 500 words max. Include any applicable sketches, designs, instructions, etc. as a JPG or PDF.
II) Documentation of previous related work or a list of applicable skills, maximum 2 pages, 5 images, or 5 minutes of video, sent as PDFs, JPGs, or a website link.
III) Resumé or bio, maximum 2 pages. Include a website if you have one.

Proposals are due no later than Feb 28th at 11:59pm, and applicants will be notified by mid-March.

Puppetry! Donuts! A mayor in drag! Last Friday night, Flux Factory kicked off an entertainment-filled Opening Reception of Banquet for America, ”an experimental utopian village centered around a banquet table.”

In a scene right out of Synecdoche, a collaboration of artists have actually constructed a miniature, whimsical village within the old factory, with stores that range from a Donuttery, to a jewelry store, to a beauty salon where a haircut or manicure can be had in exchange for a piece of juicy gossip.

Opening night featured many artists and entertainers who performed for the crowd packing the banquet hall, which offered a feast free of charge. (It was taco night.) The “Mayor” of the banquet, LuLu LoLo, a female artist in drag, gave an opening speech and recited poetry, before puppeteer Adam Ende took the stage to perform a scene from Genesis, a semi-graphic reenactment of the first recorded “spilling of seed.” Afterward, Brooklyn-based band Trabajo performed for a rockin’ grand finale.

The crowd, which ranged from Upper East Siders to Occupy Wall Streeters, explored the many elaborately-crafted stores, which were all constructed from reclaimed materials.  Guests sang karaoke while sipping beer and cocktails that could be purchased with a suggested donation, the only fee to see one of New York’s most unique ongoing exhibitions.
But hurry!  The closing Bacchanalian Banquet is February 12: “a visual and tactile extravaganza influenced by Greek and Roman saturnalia and Filippo Marinetti’s Futurist Cookbook.” This is one exhibition you’ll definitely want to feast your eyes on.

Through February 12 at Flux Factory, 39-31 29th Street, Long Island City. Open every day from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Special events throughout.

Exhibition dates: February 3 – 12, open every day from 10am – 10pm

Opening Reception: Friday, February 3rd, 7-11pm
Special Flux Thursday: Thursday, February 9th, 8-11:30pm
Cabaret Extravaganza: Saturday, February 11, 7-10pm
Closing Banquet: Sunday, February 12, 6-9pm

Flux Factory is pleased to announce Banquet for America, an experimental utopian village centered around a banquet table. Our artist-built town-within-a-gallery will be complete with a theater, specialized shops, and more; come experience a village equipped with bakers, jewelers, barbers, puppeteers, and smørrebrød-makers! Artists will inhabit the space for the duration of the show, eating and living with each other in structures made from reclaimed materials. We have a dynamic group of performance and conceptual artists, and the experience will shift and grow as the show goes on.

The preparation of food and ritual of communal eating has been enormously formative in shaping American culture. Banquet for America will explore food as a way of gaining a deeper awareness of oneself within a larger community, beyond sustenance. In addition, the exhibition is a response to the decline of the traditional town structure in the face of box stores, malls, and chain restaurants. These structures attempt to replace the commercial enterprises of the traditional downtown district, and in doing so, subvert the viability of family-owned businesses. Such changes are more visible in small towns, where transformation is more tangible, but are of vital importance to the larger economy and the fabric of the nation.

Banquet for America will include four special event nights: an opening reception with Jean Barberis & Mark Krawczuk on February 3rd; Flux Thursday on February 9th; a cabaret and puppet show night on February 11th; and, to close, A Bacchanalian Banquet with Giustina Surbone on February 12th.

While the opening, Flux Thursday, and cabaret night will all be open to public, we are taking reservations for the closing event. Click here for more information.

On February 11th, the Invisible Kitchen will present The Master of Prayer, a puppet allegory, followed by glittering musical performances by Homo Hasidus, Angela Washko, Veronica Dougherty, Kagero, and the Ruffian Arms..

Participating artists: Adam Ende; Adrian Owen, Ian Montgomery, & Jason Eppink; Alison Ward; Andy Ralph; Angela Washko; Georgia Muenster; Giustina Surbone; Hector Canonge; Jean Barberis & Mark Krawczuk; Jesper Aabille; Kerry Cox; LuLu LoLo; Stephanie Avery; and Veronica Dougherty. Curated by Alison Ward and Georgia Muenster. Special thanks to Chess Venis, Erich Rodriguez, and Shane Heinemeier!

For press or general inquiries, please contact Georgia@fluxfactory.org.

WAGMAG, the Brooklyn art guide, has generously donated Pernod Absinthe to the Banquet for America’s opening and closing receptions. Download WAGMAG’s new gallery guide mobile app, The Art & Absinthe Guide to Brooklyn, here.

In conjunction with her individual work she has been engaged in a number of long-term collectives and curatorial projects, including The Production Unit, HOMEWORK and the exhibition space ‘rum46′ in Århus. She holds an MFA from Malmö Art Academy, Sweden 2004, an assistantship with Sharon Hayes, New York 2005, and several grants, exhibitions and residency programs. She is currently based in Berlin and in Århus/Denmark.

Journalist in Exile: A Profile of Lawman Lynch from FramingTheCausePictures on Vimeo.

Not content to throw a mundane holiday fund-raiser, the upstarts from LIC artist collective Flux Factory shook things up at their Not-So-Silent Auction. Fluxers and their friends lined the walls and topped display tables with original works (check out some of the items in our slide show). While those attracted bids, less financially endowed partyers could spend $25 on a knockoff work by one of the carnation-wearing artists on hand. They would even create small alterations to the original. Matt Levy emceed the event in a teal suit, while Nato Thompson of Creative Time and Paddy Johnson of Art Fag City were honored with plaques bearing a gas mask and a loudspeaker, respectively.

In collaboration with Vaudeville Park (Brooklyn), Flux Factory presents a television episode for Video Vaudeville, a weekly show on Manhattan Neighborhood Networks. Flux Factory’s episode, featuring works from Flux Factory Artists-in-Residence and Alumni: Alexandra Wolkowicz, Jean Barberis and Alexis Lautier, Sanaz Mazinani, Miatta Kawinzi, Angela Washko, and Douglas Paulson. The episode will air on December 17 at 10pm (TWC Channel 67, RCN Channel 55).

January 12th, 8pm+
Flux Thursday, our monthly potluck dinner and art salon, is back! Please join us for dinner, which starts at 8 in the kitchen, and then around 9:30 we’ll head to the gallery for artist presentations.

Bring drinks or something delicious to share!

Still from Flux Factory's 2009 Kickstarter campaign

Wednesday, January 11, 2012, 6:30pm

Kickstarter: Bring your Creative Idea To Life
Join us as we explore Kickstarter, the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects. Kickstarter’s own Stephanie Pereira leads off the evening with a presentation on how to bring your project to life. Learn how to structure a project, what kind of rewards work best, and other helpful tips and valuable stats. Next we’ll take a more detailed look at the anatomy of a successful project. Filmmaker Theresa Loong, the Asian American Arts Alliance, and Flux Factory will share their experiences using the platform.

Click here to register.

This project is organized by Kickstarter and the Queens Council on the Arts. In 2012, QCA will present professional development workshops to assist artists and arts organizations to build their business, marketing and fundraising skills.

Ms. Huie is the recipient of a fellowship awarded to Flux Factory from The New York Community Trust for a six-month fully funded residency.

Bo Bartlett, "Magical Thinking"

Flux Factory’s Not-So-Silent Auction & Gala is swiftly approaching! We’ve put together an auction website so that you can bid online early and from afar, in case you can’t make it to the event on December 20th.

Do you love street art? Then take a look at SWOON’s gorgeous “Ice Queen” print. For digital art enthusiasts we’re offering three Manfred Mohr works from the Klangfarben series and a laser engraved work by Marius Watz. And for diehard New Yorkers, we have a signed Duke Riley print that was on display in subway cars this year, and Jer Thorp’s word frequency data visualization of “hope” and “crisis” as they appeared in The New York Times over the course of two decades. Any one interested in current and recent Flux Factory residents would be tickled by the work of Man Bartlett, Ben Dierckx, Angela Washko, and Alex Young.

We also have some incredible works by Holly Coulis, Lori Field, Bo Bartlett, and over 100 other artists!

Bid like you vote: early and often.

Mark your calendars for Flux Factory’s Not-so-silent Annual Art Auction & Gala

Help us celebrate a colossal year at Flux Factory with a silent auction of over 100 works by artists from our extensive community. We will honor Nato Thompson of Creative Time and Paddy Johnson of Art Fag City for the lasting imprint their work has had on contemporary art. Entertainment provided by our emcee Matt Levy and DJ We Are Architects. Expect light food, libations, music, a timeline of our experimental programming, and a few surprises.

In addition to reveling in the company of innovative artists and bidding in the silent auction, there will be “knock-off” stations where you can commission artists to create an original artwork on demand. “Knock-off” Live Artists include Angela Washko, Daupo, Douglas Paulson, Emily Bunker, Eric Doeringer, Jon Burgerman, and Youjung Byun.

Committee Members: @museumnerd, Anita Durst, Barry Hoggard & James Wagner, Carin Kuoni, Carlo Lamagna, Chen Tamir, Claire Sexton, Deborah Fisher, Doreen Jakob, Ed Woodham, Elaine Bowen, Elizabeth Dee, Ewa Bartos, Hilary Bertisch, Jayne Drost, Julia Kaganskiy, Matthew Higgs, Morgan Meis, Melanie Cohn, Nathalie Anglès, Nick Griffin, Noni Pratt, Nora Gomez, Paul D. Miller, Perry Chen, Rado Petkov, Scott Hirst, Stephen S. Santo, Esq., and Veken Gueyikian.

Participating artists: the silent auction will include artworks by Bo Bartlett, Dana Sherwood, Dasha Shiskin, Ella Kruglyanskaya, Kristian Kozul, Mark Dion, Pablo Helguera, SWOON, The Yes Men, and many others. Click the arrow below to view the entire list.
Participating Artists

Purchase Tax-Deductible Tickets Today!

Get your tickets!

I love Flux: $50.00 USD Look at Me, I’m VIP: $125.00 USD The Greatest Love of All: $500.00 USD

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

If you have any questions or would like to participate, please email auction@fluxfactory.org

Flux Factory’s 2011 Not-So-Silent Auction & Gala is supported by our sponsors, with an especially generous donation from our main sponsor, AT&T.