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.

Detailed listing of events available here.

Congress of Collectives is designed to unite collectives, individuals who choose to work collaboratively, and audience members. The three week-long series of events will examine the many forms of collaboration, participation, and self-organization and will provide a platform to generate new works, discussions, and enduring relationships. Congress of Collectives will include formal programming such as panels, talks, screenings, and performances, and informal programing, including dinners, impromptu discussions and actions.

Initiated by Flux Factory, the Congress has been planned and developed collaboratively by artists, city planners, architects, arts administrators, film makers, and activists representing over 24 collectives from the US, Europe, and the Middle East.

With Flux Factory in Long Island City as the central hub, the Congress’ many events and projects will also take place in various venues including Creative Time’s ‘Living As Form’ project space at the Essex Street Market (Manhattan), Silvershed (Manhattan), Union Docs (Brooklyn), NurtureArt (Brooklyn) and Bronx River Art Center (Bronx).

Participants: Aabille (DK), AAS (UK), Action Club (US), Bhome (US), Birds’ Ear View (UK/US), Brolab (US), Bronx River Art Center (US), BROODWORK (US), DePave (US), DoTank:Brooklyn (US), Flux Factory (US), Gaengeviertel (DE), Ghana Think Tank (US), Hotel Bar Club (US), Little Berlin (US), Madagascar Institute (US), Makan (JO), Meow Wolf (US), Openhagen (DK), Paper Tiger Television (US), Parfyme (DK/NO/US), Pie Lab (US), Play Lab (US), Raketa (SE), Reactor (UK), Red Channels (US), Social Practices Art Network (SPAN) (US), Spaceship (IL), SP Weather Station (US), Street Plans (US), The Work Office (US), Tomorrow Lab (US), ULTRAFUTURO (Bulgaria/Russia), Union Docs, Urban Layers (US), Voina (RU), Wooloo (DK). Curated by Douglas Paulson & Christina Vassallo, organized by Summer Guthery with special thanks to Angela Washko for production assistance.

More information about Congress of Collectives workshops, public actions, discussions, and meetings can be found here.

Contact christina[at]fluxfactory[dot]org for press inquiries.

Congress of Collectives is supported, in part, by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Materials for the Arts; and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State’s 62 counties.

Consider escaping your common, everyday tasks and places without using your common, everyday devices. Through installation, painting, drawing, and video, Yana Dimitrova and Angela Washko portray the mundane patterns and structures of everyday experience and consider models of living that exist outside of our “to-buy-is-to-gratify” mentality. Stripping fast food architecture and smart phone technology of it’s branding and context, Washko and Dimitrova present what remains – hollow monuments to consumer culture.

The Greatest Achievements, an installation by Dimitrova, is a much larger than life checklist that borrows symbols from a smart phone organizational tool. The piece represents the cyclical process of writing a task, creating a box, achieving the task, checking the box, and adding new tasks. Bright check boxes suggest urgency, and darker tones define more common day-to-day tasks. Also on display are her landscape paintings, which counter the capitalist dream of monetary gain and opportunity for all. Highway billboards are whitewashed and massive malls are discomforting in their emptiness.

Washko’s Church’s Kentucky Fried McDonald’s Hut removes the context of fast food chain restaurants from California to Maine to Texas to Kansas to Pennsylvania in an effort to reveal their homogeneity, the effectiveness of corporate branding, and the dominance of their existence within the built landscape. Set in the remote village of Laugarvatn in Iceland, the artist’s latest video work takes a satirical approach to the concept of unequal exchange in the history of merchant culture and New York City as a brand throughout the world.

Yana Dimitrova graduated from the School of Fine Arts “Acd. Iliya Petrov” in Sofia, Bulgaria in 2002 and received a BFA (2006) and MFA (2008) from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah and Atlanta, Georgia (USA). Her most recent exhibitions took place in Berlin, Budelsdorff (Germany), Bath, Manchester (UK), New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta (USA), and Sofia (Bulgaria). Dimitrova currently lives and works in New York, NY. She has exhibited most recently at
Miyako Yoshinaga Art Prospects in Chelsea.

Angela Washko is a current artist-in-residence at Flux Factory and has recently completed residencies at Gullkistan in Iceland, The Contemporary Artists Center at Woodside in Troy, NY, and The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. She holds a BFA from Tyler School of Art of Temple University. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally including most recently The Rotterdam International Film Festival, LUMEN in New York City,The Athens Video Art Festival, Carnival of e-Creativity in New Dehli, Videopolis in Barcelona, The New Media Festival in Cologne, The Self Destructing Art Show at Flux Factory, and The Budapest Short Film Festival.

Email angela.washko@gmail.com for inquiries.

Opening reception: August 5, 6 pm on
Exhibition Dates: August 6 – 7 & August 12 – 13, noon – 4 pm

“There is something in critique that is akin to virtue.” Michel Foucault, lecture “What is Critique?”

The artists included in Why Participate? are constructive critics concerned with collaboration, participation, the proliferation of art in spaces outside of traditional museums and galleries, and notions of community. Acting politically, they deal with public issues where and when they are not resolved. These artists recognize the needs of communities and take their work into the public sphere – making their resistance visible. Consequently these pranksters, dancers, public space magicians, salesmen, protesters, hackers, and reality tv stars are not just making things in the tradition of art as object – but are making things happen.

Makers, philosophers, and doers in this exhibition examine and excite, promoting social change through a variety of formats including unauthorized construction in public space, internet retail endeavors, dance routines, video games, rapid prototyping, re-enactments of the Victorian era, blanket fort building, and maps of genetically modified organisms. The word “participation” is examined through works that evoke and promote physical responses and psychological changes in perception to public social space and works that provide the public access to information that is otherwise cryptic.

Expect documentation from socially radical projects from 1993 to present, along with interactive timelines, maps, playable video games, and a participatory project in which visitors become architects within the gallery. During the reception, We Are Architects will lead a participatory event in which the aesthetics of the gallery will be radically altered by temporary habitats constructed by its visitors.

The exhibition is curated by Angela Washko. Participating artists include Action Club, Mike Bonanno (The Yes Men), Jason Eppink, Dara Greenwald, Nate Hill,  Ann Hirsch, Paolo Pedercini (Molleindustria), Rich Pell and The Center for PostNatural History, Pink Bloque, Boryana Rossa, and We Are Architects.

Email angela.washko@gmail.com for inquiries.

(image courtesy Pink Bloque)

Opening reception: Thursday, June 30, 6 – 8 pm
Dates: July 1 – 3, noon – 6 pm

Flux Factory is proud to present Specter Flux , an interactive environment and performance by artist-in-residence Peter Edwards, aka casperelectronics. The installation consists of three suspended orbs that glow at varying hues according to the sounds of its surroundings, including the ambient noise of the space and those made by the viewer. Its interior mechanism – a hybrid circuit using both digital and analogue electronics – transforms sound into an evolving display of multicolored lights. The performative element includes a constructed pyramid centered around a complex sound and light synthesizer that the artist plays. Viewers are invited to interact with the machine throughout the show.

The installation’s interior microphones gather sounds and convert them into data for processing by a microcontroller, which translates the frequency and amplitude – or pitch and loudness – of the ambient sounds of the space into the color and brightness of the LED-generated light. Lower frequencies create reddish hues, while higher pitched sounds produce blues and greens. Though loud sounds make brighter light, soft tones still create a visible reaction. Individually tuned, each orb reacts differently to audio stimuli within the range of human hearing. Clap, snap, speak, or shout, and the engulfing multi-sensory display of Specter Flux becomes a collaborative work that transforms sounds into light and its viewers into performers.

Peter Edwards received a BFA in sculpture from The Rhode Island School of Design in 2000 and is currently studying electrical engineering. In 2005, he developed the creative electronics department at Hampshire College. He teaches circuit bending classes at New York City’s new media arts center, Harvestworks, and writes for Make Magazine. Edwards has shown sculptural work, performed, taught workshops, and spoken on the topics of circuit bending and creative electronics internationally. He is currently an artist-in-residence at Flux Factory, dividing his time between New York City and Troy, New York, where he operates casperelectronics and curates the performance space Casper Land.

For more information or press inquiries, contact info(at)fluxfactory.org

Opening reception: Thursday, June 16, starting at 1 pm

Flux Factory is teaming up with Bifrost, a school for adults with mental handicaps in Randers, Denmark. The project is designed to facilitate a dialogue between two seemingly disparate arts institutions devoted to fostering creativity.

Kenneth Rasmussen, an artist from the Bifrost school, has constructed an enormous bikini made of plastic bags, now installed in the Flux courtyard. In return, Flux Factory has developed a set of instructions so that Bifrost participants may create an installation that references communication between the two institutions: a telephone booth with a tin-can phone.

Simultaneously–with a six hour time difference–Bifrost and Flux Factory will be hosting opening receptions at their respective venues to celebrate their new installations, on Thursday June 16.

What's a Nice Day for a Murder, 2011

Opening reception: Saturday, June 11, 6 – 9 pm
Dates: June 11 & 12, June 18 & 19, and by appointment
Hours: noon – 6 pm

Flux Factory is pleased to announce an exhibition by Dutch artist-in-residence Wieteke Heldens. She will show drawings, installations, and paintings made at Flux during her six-month residency.

The artist’s debut solo exhibition includes paintings and what she refers to as “painthings” and “paintthings.” These works on canvas and paper hint at the conflicting desires to both suppress and emote raw desires and irrational needs.

Heldens grew up in an ice cream factory, and now she lives and works again in a factory. She wants to be a machine without feelings and emotions but she is not. Her works expose hardly disguised raw nerves: what we see in these paintings is someone trying to cope with existence. Heldens is consistently inconsistent. With each painting she reinvents herself, almost as if her life depends on it. Yet her works are never melodramatic, rather, they invite us to recognize ourselves and our own existential struggles.

Special thanks to Stroom Den Haag.

Sea Worthy: Exhibition, Workshops & Excursions

Presented by EFA Project Space, Flux Factory and The Gowanus Studio Space

Summer, 2011

Part I: Exhibition on view at EFA Project Space
Exhibition Dates: June 10 – July 29, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, June 10, 6-8 pm

Part II: Workshops at The Gowanus Studio Space
Ongoing: May through July, 2011

Part III: Excursions brought to you by Flux Factory
Ongoing: July through September, 2011

Our events page is now online! Here!

The EFA Project Space, Flux Factory and The Gowanus Studio Space present Sea Worthy, an exhibition and series of public screenings, performances, lectures, workshops and artist-led excursions on the water. With 72 islands and over 700 miles of coastline, New York City is a formidable archipelago. This project invites discussion about water access, activates the largest open space in the city, and engages maritime themes in contemporary art practice. Sea Worthy brings together artists from here and abroad – in consultation with boat builders, world-class mariners, historians, writers, activists, and ecologists – to make new work about, around, and on the waterways of New York City in the summer of 2011.

Sea Worthy presents work by artists who employ the boat as a platform for collective action, private reflection, and liberatory possibility. The sea excursion suggests both an opening and a crisis – the expanse is daunting, uncontrollable, and full of dream potential. To explore this terrain, the artists take to the high and low seas, metaphorically, virtually, and in reality.

More information about the Sea Worthy exhibition, workshops, public performances, and excursions can be found here.

Part I: Sea Worthy, Exhibition

EFA Project Space

June 10 – July 29, 2011

Opening Reception: Friday, June 10, 6-8 pm

EFA Project Space presents an exhibition featuring artists who approach water navigation as subject, pushing its potential as a mutable open platform for social experimentation as well as metaphor for personal, artistic, and collective freedom. The show includes installations, models, prints, drawings, photos, videos, and various other musings by artist-seafarers who generously impart their experience of the sea in order to refresh our perception of the land.

Some highlights include:

• Documentation of Anne Percoco’s intricate Kilmer Shrines, monuments constructed in honor of sites of some of the under-appreciated drainage systems of New Jersey.
• A full-scale print by artist, boat-builder, and Tide and Current Taxi pioneer Marie Lorenz, who commemorates abandoned, washed-up boats combed from the shores of NYC by inking and printing in the style of Japanese fish prints. View her website that tracks NY Harbor tidal data.
• Illustrated plans of Amze Emmons’s fantasy purchase of a decommissioned British aircraft carrier which he proposes to convert into a community for climate refugees.
• Jonathan Kaiser’s Janet II, a personal, portable vessel crafted from salvaged materials, including disassembled chairs and hundreds of plastic grocery bags. The watercraft has transported the artist along foreign waterways and is an artifact of his travels and a testament to the potential of everyday refuse.EFA Project Space, a program of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, is located at 323 West 39th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10018.

For press inquiries, please contact Michelle Levy, Director, EFA Project Space, at michelle@efanyc.org.

Part II: Sea Worthy, Workshops

The Gowanus Studio Space

Ongoing: May through July, 2011

The Gowanus Studio Space is proud to host a series of workshops on boat-building, maritime ventures, and nautical culture. The motivations, fantasies, and processes before a boat is built and sets sail are specific to this genre of fabrication. While the exhibition’s overarching themes use the boat as a metaphor and platform for freedom, the yearning for these freedoms is bred early on in the planning and building stages of these crafts.

Workshop highlights include:

• Artist Natalia Porter leads a Traditional Mexican Trajinera Building Workshop in partnership with architecture students in Xochimilco, Mexico. Once the emblematic watercraft is designed, built, and launched, the artist will host a week of floating dinner discussions on the topic of immigration.
• Shrines of the Gowanus Canal, with artist Anne Percoco, will guide participants to convert an old boat into a mobile shrine – constructed primarily from scrap material – that will then embark on a pilgrimage along the unique landscape of the EPA Superfund site, the Gowanus Canal.
• Laurie Churchman & Lisa Hutchinson lead a workshop on the History and Design of Boat Names and Boat Lettering,exploring the cultural history behind personal branding choices in design and typography of names lettered on pleasure crafts. Selections taken from Churchman’s book, BOATNAMES, will chronicle Egyptian times to the present, while boat-letterer Hutchinson gives hands-on experience with signage and lettering techniques.
• Mare Liberum will lead Shipwrecked, Shanghai’d and Marooned: A Plywood Fleet for New York City. The artist and boat-building collective based in Gowanus finds its roots in centuries-old stories of urban water squatters and haphazard watercraft builders. This workshop aims to construct boats with frames that can be built during a single afternoon using minimal tools and basic building skills.

The Gowanus Studio Space, a workshop for designers, artists, and entrepreneurs, is located at 166 7th Street, Ground Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11215.

For more information, please contact Benjamin Cohen, Director, The Gowanus Studio Space at ben@gowanusstudio.org.

Part III: Sea Worthy, Excursions

Flux Factory

Ongoing: July through August, 2011

Flux Factory invites the public to sail off on expeditions exploring the waterways of New York on a fleet of seaworthy boats built specially for this project. Ranging from short expeditions to weekend extravaganzas, our voyages aim to educate New Yorkers about the city’s waterways: a formative but easily overlooked part of our experience as city-dwellers.

A Few of Our Events:

• The Boggsville Boatel is a floating hotel built by Constance Hockaday in the Neutrino tradition, with reclaimed and scrap materials. Moored in the Rockaways, the raft will be open for weekend getaways, complete with fresh flowers and vacancy sign, along with a composting outhouse raft. The artist will also present a site-specific performative lecture.
• Alalba Eco Tours – led by Gabriela Basterra, Andy Bichlbaum, and Jeff Day – will explore and document the coast of New York City aboard the Alalba, a lovingly restored 50-foot ketch.
• Artist and boat-builder Jessica Segall will conduct the Procession for Immediate Certainty, carrying her handmade Norwegian faering in a parade across Manhattan to launch in the East River and sail to Queens – accompanied by the release of sky lanterns over the river, in the style of a Viking funeral.

Flux Factory, an arts collective, residency, and non-profit organization, is located at 39-31 29th Street, Long Island City, NY 11101.

For more information please contact Georgia Muenster, Flux Factory Exhibitions Manager and Communications Coordinator, at georgia@fluxfactory.org.

Image: Natalia Porter envisions the Trajineras

Participating Artists Include: Michael Arcega; Rachel Bacon; Gabriela Basterra, Andy Bichlbaum & Jeff Day; Jimbo Blachly & Lytle Shaw; George Boorujy; Matt Bua; The Brooklyn Pirates; Laurie Churchman; Adriane Colburn; Heather Dewey-Hagborg & Thomas Dexter; Meredith Drum & Rachel Stevens; Amze Emmons; Andrew Eutsler, Shane Heinemeier & Alison Ward; Drew Feuer & Eleanor Lovinsky; Jason Gandy; Richard Haley; Crystal Heiden; Constance Hockaday; TJ Hospodar; Haley Hughes; Sarah Julig; Jonathan Kaiser; Adam Katzman; Marie Lorenz; Hans Maharawal & Thomas Robinson; Mary Mattingly; Orien McNeill; Nick Normal; Ciaran O’Dochartaigh; Anne Percoco; Natalia Porter; Duke Riley; Tod Seelie; Jessica Segall; Gina Siepel; Reid Stowe, Swimming Cities; Swoon; A’yen Tran; Emmett Walsh; Ian Warren; Brindalyn Webster; and Charles Westfall.

Curatorial Committee: Jean Barberis, Benjamin Cohen, Dylan Gauthier, Michelle Levy, Georgia Muenster, Kendra Sullivan, and Sally Szwed.

EFA Project Space is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Private funding for the program has been received from the Lily Auchincloss Foundation.

Flux Factory is supported, in part, by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State’s 62 counties.

Opening reception: April 1, from 6 pm on
Exhibition dates: Saturday, April 2 through Sunday, May 1
Hours: open weekends, 12 – 6 pm or by appointment (closed Easter Sunday)
Location: Flux Factory, 39-31 29th Street, Long Island City, Queens

Flux Factory is pleased to announce The Typhoon Continues and So Do You, an exhibition of new works through which artists contemplate four specific “artifacts” of war and how their original purposes are transformed through integration into larger society.

Armed conflict leads to unique forms of expression that pervade contemporary culture in myriad ways both visible and invisible, tangible and abstract. Deciding on objects and images that were originally intended for use by various institutions or political movements and that later experienced a re-appropriation by larger society, we considered how they came to occupy a different meaning in daily life. They are: (1) Transcript of the Milosevic war crimes trial at The Hague, (2) Balaclava face mask, adopted as a symbol of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, (3) US Army recruitment video game, and (4) North Korean Hell March video and the ensuing discussion posted on YouTube.

Artists’ responses include a video featuring a repentant Milosevic, an eerily playful floor installation that will illustrate America’s involvement in armed conflicts around the world, competing recruitment videos in the style of Civil War reenactments, and a series of plays that reinterpret Subcomandante Marcos’ actions through the text of Japanese revolutionary Yukio Mishima. The exhibition will be accompanied by a reader with commissioned texts that also respond to the “artifacts” of war.

Participating artists include Vahap Avsar, Hector Canonge, Joseph DeLappe, Patrick Dintino, Nick Fevelo, Yevgeniy Fiks, Gregory Green, Harvey Loves Harvey, Pablo Helguera & Colectivo Mishima, Yael Kanarek, Kristian Kozul, Julia Kul, Elizabeth Larison, Brian Leo, Paolo Pedercini, Public Studio, Ryan Roa, Christopher Robbins, Sayeh Sarfaraz, Aida Sehovic, and Matthew Sleeth.

Reader contributions by Rodney Dickson, Pauline Julier, Biko Koenig, Nick Kolakowski, Carin Kuoni, Morgan Meis, Catherine McMahon, Gregory B. Moynahan, Oliver Ressler, A.E. Souzis, and Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor.

Curated by Elizabeth Larison, Douglas Paulson, Ginger Shulick, Chen Tamir, and Christina Vassallo.

The Typhoon Continues and So Do You is supported, in part, by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Materials for the Arts; and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State’s 62 counties.

Saturday, March 26th
3 pm – Exhibition opens
4 pm on the dot – Performative presentation and screening, to be followed by a cocktail hour

An experiment has been conducted. In Manhattan, in Stockholm, and now at Flux Factory. On the Dot investigates both group and singular relationships to time: how individuals position themselves in relationship to time versus societal constructs to manage it (calendars, clocks). Through a series of experiments in Flux Factory’s gallery, artist-in-residence Anna Lundh will explore our inner visualizations of time – internal images that are rarely addressed or captured. The findings and current status of the investigation will be revealed to the public in a performative presentation and screening.

If you want to participate in the experiment, please contact the artist at info(at)fluxfactory.org for further instructions.

March 15 – 22

Artist talk: Friday, March 18 at 5 pm

Flux Factory has been granted a group “experiential residency” at the flea market within Super G, in Greensboro, North Carolina! The Super G Mart is an enormous international supermarket and public flea market, where artists-in-residence are given a stall to transform in any way wish. This space can act as a central hub for exploring the Super G, a site for social engagement, a temporary resource for the public, or simply a place to sit and do nothing. Join us as we create a cardboard vision of a dystopian artist village within the local market, where we create a plethora of things to barter, including shoes, hats, donuts, and operatic arias.

Super G Market
4927 West Market St
Greensboro, NC 27407

March 4-6, 2011
Open hours: Friday-Sunday, 12-7 pm

Flux Factory is proud to present Democratic Working Title for Now, an exhibition of new works by Flux artists-in-residence in conjunction with Long Island City’s Armory Arts Day. Self-curated by the Flux collective, participants create their own “studios” in which to exhibit their work. This is the first show featuring only in-house artists to be held at our new and wonderful building. An open artists collective, Flux is proud to present a variety of works, including painting, video, drawing, conceptual, and multi-media art. True to its name, Democratic Working Title for Now reflects the immediacy of Flux Factory as a constantly-changing group, with artists constantly coming in and out of its doors.

Live performances throughout the day on Friday, March 4.

Participating Artists: Marion Arnaud, Man Bartlett, Johanna Bruckner, Cecilia Enberg, Hannah Heilmann, Shane Heinemeier, Wieteke Heldens, Jaime Iglehart, Anna Lundh, Shawna McLeod, Georgia Muenster, Nick Normal, Matthew-Robin Nye, Adrian Owen, Douglas Paulson, Christina Helena Romirer, Alison Ward, and Angela Washko.

February 13 – 27

Brunch and Opening:
Sunday, February 13, 1 – 3pm

Closing Party, Book Release, and Performances:
February 26, 7 – 12am

Open Hours: Saturdays and Sundays, 12 – 6pm, and by appointment

The Perfumed Handkerchief is themed on grotesque beauty, featuring over the top, overly ornate artwork. Laden with traditional beauty icons that verge on the extreme, the works are inspired by Rococo’s ornate symbolization of love and desire. Decorative arts, architecture, and dress worked in tandem to produce an immersive environment of florid ornament. The title The Perfumed Handkerchief refers to the way perfume was used during the eighteenth century. It was less often worn as something to attract or allure others; rather, it was worn for the sensation of the wearer, dabbed onto a handkerchief or glove and held to the nose. This not only blocked the putrid smells of the streets and gutters, but also provided an interior sensory world for the person wearing the scent. Like the veil or the handkerchief, the works gathered here create an internal universe. In its separation from reality, art becomes fantastic and beautiful, as well as grotesque and monstrous. Through performance, installation, video, and painting, The Perfumed Handkerchief creates a place in which the line between desire and repulsion is almost indiscernible.

Curated by Flux Artist-in-Residence Alison Ward.

For event inquiries, contact texandtrixie (at) hotmail.com or call 917 613-6016. For press, please contact info (at) fluxfactory.org.

Participating Artists: Ion Birch, Mike Estabrook, Hannah Heilmann, Jaime Iglehart, Jayson Keeling, Sarah Kipp, Michelle Matson, Shiri Mordechay, Matthew-Robin Nye, Alison Ward, John Ward, Angela Washko, and Barnaby Whitfield.

Image courtesy of Sarah Kipp. The Liar, 2010.

BrokeTop Mountain Real Estate offers SPECTACULAR views from its penthouse suite off the highest tops on the eastern seaboard!!! That’s right, folks! You’ll blow your mountain top over these views!!

February 5-7, 2011
Chelsea Piers, Pier #59
Saturday, 10 – 4pm
Sunday, 10 – 4pm
Monday, 12 – 6pm

Flux Factory is proud to present BrokeTop Mountain Developments as part of Greenpeace’s Coal Free Future Tour, a ship tour raising awareness on the impacts of burning coal and mining. We will run a sales office with competing agents, each agent actively working to woo customers with the charming perks of coal. Combining real estate jargon with tongue-in-cheek presentation, we hope to draw attention to pressing environmental issues in energy-based coal production and consumption. Join us at Chelsea Piers at Pier 59 next to the Arctic Sunrise ship!

BrokeTop Mountain is on Flickr!

Doors open Saturday, November 6 at 11am
Reception and performances from 6pm
Open weekends 12 – 6 or by appointment through Tuesday, November 23

Artist talk on Sunday, November 14 from 2-4pm.  With Brendan Coyle, Kerry Downey, Ryan C. Doyle, and Nicholas Fraser.  Moderated by Ginger Shulick.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Homage to New York, Jean Tinguely’s seminal self-destructing sculpture.* After fifty years, it remains one of the most radical pieces in the history of modern art. In an art scene dominated by the commodification of art objects, Tinguely’s gesture is a crucial reminder that not all art can be possessed. Flux Factory will pay tribute to the work by asking artists to respond to Homage to New York. We will explore the potential of destruction as a creative force and the fleeting beauty of decay. Some pieces will go with a highly performative bang during the opening, and others will slowly dwindle and decay throughout the show. Nothing will survive!

Participating artists: Ranjit Bhatnagar; Conrad Carlson & Ryan C. Doyle; Brendan Coyle; Daupo; Ben Dierckx; Kerry Downey & Claudia Peña Salinas; Nicholas Fraser; Ghostfuk3r (aka David Carson); Ryan O’Connor & Hackett; Douglas Paulson; Johanna Povirk-Znoy; John Roach; Dana Sherwood; Angela Washko.

Curated by Jean Barberis and Georgia Muenster.

Shuttles to Flux Factory from PS1 will be running Saturday and Sunday, November 6 and 7,  in conjunction with the New York Art Book Fair.

For press inquiries, please contact Georgia at Flux Factory.org.

*On the evening of March 17th, 1960, in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, 250 people gathered to view the piece as it destroyed itself. The eight-meter high sculpture was a beautiful and complex mechanism made of eclectic objects gathered from the refuse of the city: wheels from various bicycles, tricycles, and baby carriages, a bath tub, a go-cart, a piano, bottles, fire extinguishers, a weather balloon, various tools, and a cacophony of bells, car horns, and radios. Once the irreversible process was set into motion, the device committed suicide by sawing, hammering, and melting itself into bits and pieces before a zealous firefighter put an end to the mayhem. In the end, the crowd dismantled the piece, taking charred souvenirs from the smoking rubble.

The Self-Destructing Art Show is made possible in part through support from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Back by popular demand: Going Places (Doing Stuff), our artist-led bus tours, are now going to be held year round, come sun, rain, or hail! The content of each tour is entirely up to the artist, and destinations are kept secret. Artists have carte blanche to lead a bus-full of people on an odyssey around the greater New York/Quad-State area. Think of it as adventure as performance art.

Our next tour, “Pleasure Forever” with OverTake, will be on Sunday, October 24.  Sign up here!

Before each tour, we provide only the following information: artists’ name, title of adventure, duration, and a list of needed supplies. In other words, when people sign up for a tour, they know what to bring and how long they’ll be gone, but will have no idea where they’re going or what they’ll experience. This past summer’s adventures included squaredancing on the boardwalk, ghost ships, pinball, a trip to an abandoned summer camp, and blueberry picking.

All tours are first-come, first-serve. They go like hotcakes.  All tours are $20, unless otherwise noted.  No phone calls please!

Curated by Jean Barberis and Georgia Muenster.

The tours will be on board a school bus propelled by vegetable oil provided by the Rude Mechanical Orchestra. For questions or interviews for which we can only provide extremely vague and evasive answers due to the secretive nature of this project, please email Georgia at fluxfactory.org.

Going Places (Doing Stuff): Open Season is made possible in part through support from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Due to technical difficulties, this exhibition has been canceled.    Happily, Ben’s next project, “Resistance to Coming into Being,” will be part of Flux’s Self-Destructing Art Show, opening November 6.

Friday, October 15 – Sunday, October 17
Opening October 15, 8 pm

Flux artist-in-residence Ben Dierckx is presenting his latest project, Perceived Perception, a presentation of the subjective side of psychogeographic analysis. The artist will transform the exhibition space into an awareness space by flying a remote-controlled zeppelin linked to a camera. This is an informal gathering, an installation/performance where visitors will experience the zeppelin’s point of view through a huge projection. Perception may be altered throughout the evening.

Weekends, October 2 – 10
Noon – 6 pm

We’re taking part in this year’s Art in Odd Places, “a festival exploring the odd, ordinary and ingenious in the spectacle of daily life.” Come by Union Square at 14th Street in Manhattan and check out our pun as social intervention, Sign a Waver, or The Wavers!

Alt_Cph

September 17-19

Flux Factory is proud to participate in Alt_Cph, an alternative art fair at The Factory for Art and Design in Copenhagen. Drop by and visit our fake tattoo parlor, manned by temporary tattooist Georgia Muenster. She’ll be lovingly giving away our specially commissioned anatomical Flux hearts, designed by Elizabeth Larison. We’re very excited.

FLUXSOLUS

September 22 – October 10

Flux is taking part in a large exhibition of works inspired by Raymond Roussel’s early 20th century novel, Locus Solus, what became a prototype for the sci-fi fantasy genre. Premiering at the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece, our latest film project, FLUXSOLUS, features three hapless wanderers who get lost on a labrynthine tour of the Flux Estate. We get eaten alive by golden kittens, we get whapped to death by an orange noodle, we get murdered by vicious vengeful mummies. If you happen to be in Athens, come watch us get born again, crossdress, and drop things down the stairs.

FLUXSOLUS is directed by Jaime Iglehart, with artwork by Astrid Bussink, Daupo, Peter Hristoff, Fabienne Lasserre, Michelle Levy, Matthew-Robin Nye, Annie Reichert, Lauren Silberman, Etosha Teryll, Sarah Tosques, and Christopher Ulivo.  Special thanks to Out of the Box Intermedia and Souzita Goudouna.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flux Factory’s inaugural building-wide exhibition

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

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

Curated by Jean Barberis and Georgia Muenster

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love to all,

Morgan Meis, original Founder

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

Thank you to our amazing volunteers!

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

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

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

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

Opening Reception Dec 3rd, 6-9pm

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

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

“Euclidean Space”

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

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

September 18th October 24, 2009

Opening Reception, Thursday, September 17 from 6-8 pm

Flux Factory and EFA Project Space are proud to present Arctic Book Club, on view from September 18 through October 24, at EFA Project Space in Manhattan.  Curated by Jean Barberis and Michelle Levy, this exhibition is the result of a several-month long process embarked on by a group of artists responding to Tété Michel Kpomassie’s book, “An African in Greenland,” an account of the author’s unique journey from his native Togo to Greenland.

On September 23rd at 6:30 pm, Arctic Bookclub welcomes Kpomassie to respond to the exhibition and reflect on his experiences since having left Greenland.

Artists:  Amber Cortes, Jenelle Covino, The Green and Bold Cooperative, Katerina Lanfranco, Fabienne Lasserre, Valerie Piraino, Greg Pond, Annie Reichert, Julian Rogers, Ranbir Sidhu, and Christopher Ulivo.

EFA Project Space
323 West 39th Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10018
(between 8th and 9th Avenues)

Gallery Hours: Wed. through Sat. 12-6 PM

T. 212-563-5855, F. 212-563-1875

www.efa1.org

Artic-Circle_Press_release

July 11th through September 5th, 2009

You get on a bus, you don’t know where you’re going, and then something happens!

This summer’s schedule:

Following the success of last summer’s acclaimed Going Places (Doing Stuff), Flux Factory will outdo itself and offer even more amazing artist-led tours to the general public. Think of it as “adventure as performance art.” The content of the tours is entirely up to the artist, and destinations are kept secret. Artists will have “carte blanche” to lead a bus-full of people on an odyssey around the greater New York/Tri-State area.

This year our tours will be on board a vegetable oil propelled school bus provided by the Rude Mechanical Orchestra.

Before each tour, we provide only the following information: the artists’ name, title of adventure, duration, and a list of needed supplies. In other words, when people sign up for a tour, they know what to bring and how long they’ll be gone, but will have no idea where they’re going or what they’ll experience. Last year’s adventures included upstate swimming holes, a trip to a burning city known as “hell on earth,” a gastronomic tour through NYC, and a chase after an imaginary character.

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

Things that may or may not occur:

-Partial or total immersion in various bodies of water
-Impromptu back-of-the-bus dance parties
-Mesmerizing encounters with astonishing and unexpected fleeting beauty that will vanish before you can grasp it, leaving you with indescribable feelings of Baudelairian melancholy and enlightenment
-Naps
-Miscellaneous imbibitions
-Roaring
-Life-affirming encounters with extraordinary individuals and their extraordinary pursuits
-Breaking of world records
-And much more!

All tours will be first-come, first-serve with a suggested donation.

Curated by Jean Barberis.

Participating Artists:
Yoni Brook and Liz Barry; Jason Eppink and Matt Green; Moses Gates; Siobhan Rigg and Carolyn Lambert; Douglas Paulson, Justin Rancourt and Chuck Yatsuk; Jeff Stark; and David Felix Sutcliffe.

Dates and contents of tours are subject to change.

For documentation of past tours please visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTH-UsiiOQo
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/arts/11wspare.html?ex=1373515200&en=5ddc117d0609ba4c&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
http://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2008/09/lost-in-hudson-river-vol-74-bannermans.html
http://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2008/07/lost-in-history-vol-70-all-boro-bonanza.htmlhttp://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2008/07/lost-in-history-vol-67-new-yorkers-go.html

For information about the Rude Mechanical Orchestra please refer to http://rudemechanicalorchestra.org/.

“Damn you, Flux Factory! Are you really that good? Can you truly tell the secret whims and desires, the wants, needs and must-haves of a bunch of New York City artists / adventurers / self-proclaimed geeks / cheese-bus aficionados / travelers / cheapskates / and those in the know?It seems that way €“ and 54 people can prove it.”
–Matt Levy, The L Magazine

This Project was made possible with the generous support from the following institutions:

Flux Factory is pleased to announce two projects in partnership with European collectives:

Water Girls, Water Boys at the Athens Biennial, Opening June 14

Two Flux Factory artists, Chen Tamir and Douglas Paulson, will collaborate with Urban Void, the Network of Nomadic Architecture, and Damon Rich & Jae Shin on Water Girls, Water Boys at the upcoming Athens Biennial. Together with the public, they will explore Athens’ coastal suburb of Phaliron at the mouth of the Kifissos River and the island of Psytalleia. These areas have fallen victim to ecological irresponsibility, and Flux Factory and company will be creating an open-source tour guide to the area.

Please see douglaspaulson.com, faliron-bay-athens.blogspot.com and kifissosguide.wordpress.com for more information.

Reverse Pedagogy at the Venice Biennial, June 1-7

Flux Factory is partnering with Reverse Pedagogy, an experimental, nomadic art school in session during the first ten days of the 53rd Venice Biennial, bringing with it an international cast of artists, curators, and writers. Taking off from its first installment at the Banff Centre (Canada), Reverse Pedagogy turns the city of Venice into its own site of art and knowledge production, communal living, play, and conversation. With air mattresses, tents, crash pads, and eleven canoes in tow, participants engage round-the-clock in activities within the residency and the Biennial itself.

Reverse Pedagogy will travel to New York in 2010 as part of Flux Factory’s newly established residency program.

For more information, please visit www.reversepedagogy.com.

NOW WITH DOWNLOADABLE MAP!

From May 16 to 23, 2009 the Kindness and Imagination Development Society (K.I.D.S.) will partner with Flux Factory to carry out a series of events and actions in parks, on quiet streets, on busy sidewalks, at workplaces, in private residences, in public libraries and museums, and anywhere else the K.I.D.S. can think of to play and work. The series will be characterized by an ethic of generosity, innovation, and open exchange.

The series of activities will be co-produced collaboratively by an open, changeable, and inclusive group of individuals, including you, we hope!

These events will take place throughout Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.
To learn more about the K.I.D.S. and for schedule updates please visit

kidsociety.wordpress.com

You can download a PDF of the map and activity book with the schedule for the week. Print out on two sides of a sheet and fold up into a book on your own. Just fold on the dotted lines and cut on the solid line (in the middle of the page), then fold it up into a book with the map poster concealed within!

SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES – MAY 16-23, 2009

Saturday, May 16
1:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Union Square steps, 14th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.
Kickoff Gathering for the week of K.I.D.S. Work:
*Emt McEternalMojo leads us in a demonstration and sharing of his encyclopedic knowledge of all known handshake/highfive/hug based greeting variations. Bring your favorite greeting methods!
*Dress up party/imagination bee/costume swap. Bring costumes!
*Temporary fort/environment building exercises with cardboard boxes and fabric. Bring materials!
*Ice cream walk with kick-the-can ice-cream-makers and tin-can-telephones. Bring milk, ice, and empty coffee cans!
*Snacks galore, and much more.
*Get your activity book and guide to the week of K.I.D.S. Work.

Sunday, May 17
3:00 p.m.
Start at 615 West 113th Street, Manhattan.
*Songlines/What A Neighborhood: A singing, ice-cream-making walk around the neighborhood. As we pass sites associated with composers, we will sing snatches of their works. We will carry a banner that reads,
“What A Neighborhood!” (Elizabeth Adams and the Orfeo Duo leading. Contact: elizabethadams@musician.org)
Other days and locations for this project throughout week with improvised songs/music TBA.

Monday, May 18
7:00 €“ 10:00 a.m.
Herald Square, 34th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.
*Farty Party: a pep rally at the entrance of the subway station cheering on the commuters entering/exiting the train. Bring pompoms!

Tuesday, May 19
1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
42nd Street at Lexington Avenue, Manhattan.
*Lunch Time Theater, or Text Me Theater will be an attempt to engage workers to perform their cell phone text messages and twitter updates on a make-shift theater stage that will imitate the soap box platform. Text Me Theater is a way to give office workers a chance to expose inner office conversation, offer the opportunity to exercise a workers’ right to speech, and also call attention to the performative nature of text message language. (Hong-An Truong, Huong Ngo leading.)

Wednesday, May 20
1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
42nd Street at Lexington Avenue, Manhattan.
*Let’s Make Lunch! is a lunch time game with three goals: to engage workers in play; to reveal the difficulty of language and communication in relations of power; and to feed people who need a lunch. (Hong-An Truong, Huong Ngo leading.)

Thursday, May 21
12:00 – 1:00 p.m.
Nostrand Avenue and Fulton Street, Brooklyn.
*Intermittent balloon parade. Something mysterious will drift down the street. Get a helium balloon and join it! (Diane Dwyer leading.)

Friday, May 22
2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Near school at 28-01 41st Ave, Long Island City, Queens.
*Blowup Sale: People will have the opportunity to blow up special balloons with multiple holes, such that a group has to work together to blow up the balloon. In exchange for this special balloon reaching a set size, the participants will get to keep it. (Eva Jung leading.)

Saturday, May 23
1:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Meet at the park by the East River, on Vernon Boulevard at 41st Ave., Queens.
Wrap-up Gathering of the K.I.D.S. Work Week
*Seedbomb/kite-building workshop. Build a bird-shaped kite and fly it over a nearby empty lot to drop seedbomb eggs that will grow into wildflowers. (Elizabeth Chaney leading.)
*Play with portable lawns and gardens and put mud and grass in your shoes (Emcee C.M. and Caroline Woolard leading).
*Get your feet washed afterwards (David Sutcliffe leading).
*Play music on fences with sticks.
*Spontaneously innovate card games while walking around the block.
*Rolling ball of people growing bigger like a snowball game (Jorge Rojas leading).
*Show and Tell of things that happened throughout the week, things made while at work, pictures printed by a someone special, somatic treasure map dolls, etc.
*If you have filled up your activity book through attending all the events, pick up your prize: a K.I.D. KIT to go.
*Raffle to win a K.I.D. for a day!

All Week

*Make Other Things While At Work: Make whatever you want or need while at your job this week, and bring it for Show and Tell on Saturday, May 23.

*Film From: Take your camera and load it with a roll of film (or use a disposable camera if it’s easier). Take pictures of whatever whenever wherever however. Take as much time as you need. You can forget about it and rediscover it, take a picture a day, go through a roll in two hours, whatever. When you finish the roll, unload your camera, take the roll, put it in an envelope and mail it to someone special. Friend, lover, neighbor, grandparent, pet fish, teacher, stranger, admirer. Before you send it off write a letter to the someone special about whatever, as open or as detailed or as mysterious or as perplexing as you want to be, and put it in the envelope with the roll of film. Mail it.
The someone special should develop the film.
The someone special will have your prepared photographs, a piece of you.
The someone special should do the same.
The someone should bring the pictures to the show and tell at the end of the week, on Saturday, May 23.

*The Electric K.I.D.S. performance exchange with Bulgaria: A pre-selected group of people will be performing actions based on (mis)interpreted instructions sent back and forth between Sofia and NYC.

*Somatic Treasure Maps Project: Caroline wants to hear about your aches and pains. Please tell her about every single event that ever affected your body with great detail. She will listen to everything you have to say about life’s passage and the marks it leaves behind. You are free to talk for ten minutes or two hours, without interruption. While you will be talking, she will be busy taking notes on a sheet of paper, recording your story with words and images. On Saturday, May 23rd you will be able to receive drawing for a doll, a 3-D map of your aches and pains. The doll will be yours to keep, your secret portrait, your somatic treasure map. (By Caroline Boileau. Ongoing at all K.I.D.S. locations)

*What are “Spiritual Problems”? Julia writes, “I don’t know, but I think I have some… If you’d like you can call me to speak about ‘spiritual problems’ in whichever way occurs to you: as a topic, if you think you have some, other ways… I will be around to speak on Friday the 22nd and Saturday the 23rd in the evening from 6-10pm at (484) 432-1898. If you miss me or would rather, you could write me an email: juliakathrynrich@gmail.com. My name is Julia.”

The K.I.D.S. so far:

ELIZABETH ADAMS
JEAN BARBERIS
MICHAEL BERENS
AMANDA BOEKELHEIDE
CAROLINE BOILEAU
CHRISTINE CARUSO
ELIZABETH CHANEY
PEDRO DOS REIS
DIANE DWYER
TED EFREMOFF
SAM EKWURTZEL
CORDELIA ERICKSON DAVIES
KIM ESSEX
GREEM
TAKASHI HORISAKI
ASHLEY HOWARD
TIM HYDE
EVA JUNG
EVAN LAURENCE
ALAN LUPIANI
BRYAN MARKOVITZ
MARY IVY MARTINS
EMCEE C.M.
ANDREW MCMULLAN
BRENDAN MCMULLAN
EMMETT MCMULLAN
HUONG NGO
REBECCA PARKER
DOUGLAS PAULSON
JULIA RICH
DIANA RO
JORGE ROJAS
SHALIN SCUPHAM
ERIN MARIE SICKLER
DAVID SUTCLIFFE
CHEN TAMIR
JADE THACKER
CASSIE THORNTON
KYLE TRIPLETT
HONG-AN TRUONG
SARAH VALERI
JOHN WALKER
CHRISTINE WANG
NADIA WILLIAMS
CAROLINE WOOLARD

Flux Factory has invited ten artists to transform strangers’ homes into sites for interactive works. Domestic or historic locations throughout New York City will become arenas for exploring what it means to inhabit a space, to make it one’s own. In conjunction with openhousenewyork, Living Room locations range from private living rooms to historical sites throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.

Explore a wall of secrets, a room-cum-optical-device, and go rooftop camping, and other exciting projects!

Living Room is a continuation of Flux Factory’s interest in the urban experience, in New York history, and in the overlap between private and public space. As a live/work collective, we are fascinated by what it means to make a space one’s own. While satisfying our voyeur desires, this project is also an opportunity for the public to peek into private sites normally off limits.

Works will be on view throughout the 6th Annual OHNY Weekend on October 4 & 5, 2008 from 11:00 €“ 6:00 unless otherwise noted.

A free, 20 person shuttle will leave the Center for Architecture on Saturday and Sunday at 12pm to transport visitors to the sites.

openhousenewyork is a non-profit organization celebrating New York City’s architecture and design, culminating in America’s largest event of its kind, the annual OHNY Weekend.

Participating Artists: Emily Clark, Rodney Dickson, Kim Holleman, Prem Krishnamurthy, John Monteith, Jo Q. Nelson, Trong Gia Nguyen, Douglas Paulson, Tattfoo Tan, Lauren Wilcox

Curated by Chen Tamir

click images to view maps.
	Emily Clark Teacher’s Lounge at P35M–Manhattan High School 317 W. 52nd Street between 9th and 10th Aves, Hell’s Kitchen In the mind of every kid in school is a secret place sparking rumors and gossip. Clark has turned the abandoned teacher’s lounge at P35M into a functioning one, playing on the tropes of its assumed uses: relaxation, anger, frustration, gossip, lunchtime, union meetings, refrigerators, and (at one time) smoking.
	Rodney Dickson Romper Room Public Toilets, 2nd floor of the Crane Street Studios, 46-23 Crane Street, LIC, Queens Romper Room evokes a torture chamber, in which victims are held hostage, tortured, interrogated, and often brutally killed. This work alludes also to methods of interrogation currently used by the US government in the War on Terror. The title was taken from a popular children’s’ TV program in Northern Ireland during the 1970s, which terrorists adopted as a name for a room in which they tortured and executed victims during the worst days of conflict in Ireland.
	Prem Krishnamurthy Berlin/New York 772 Washington Ave, Apt #2, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn This projected slide installation concerns doppelganger cities, parallel interiors, and the unreliability of travel narrative.
	John Monteith Hide and Go Seek The Arsenal, 830 Fifth Ave/ E 64th St, New York (Entrance on Central Park) Sat €“ Sun, 2:45 pm Participants will play Hide and Go Seek as a way of exploring the Arsenal and experimenting in new social settings. To participate, please RSVP to John Monteith at john@johnmonteith.com
	Jo Q. Nelson Softbox 38-09 43rd Ave 3rd Floor, Sunnyside, Queens Softbox is a completely malleable space where rooms are on wheels and entire environments can be changed around. The flexibility of this live/work warehouse space is due to its role as a testing ground for sculptural and interior architecture projects by Nelson and visiting artists. Focused on hosting, Softbox is both a laboratory and a social space where interactive programming takes place including screenings and performances. This will be its inaugural open house.
	Trong Gia Nguyen “The DUMBO Debates” (formerly known as “A View to a Thrill”) Barrack Obama and John McCain spend a weekend together on a secret roof deck Garden of Eden in DUMBO.  They talk taboo politics, drink Bloody Marys, eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and leave all inhibitions behind.
	Douglas Paulson Urban Examination Initiative, Roofs Department Locations TBA Saturday night This project is an open invitation to engage the city and OHNY from the outside. You are invited to join a group that will travel through sites by day, and camp on a rooftop by night. Participants are invited to join or leave at anytime. For more information and to RSVP to this urban adventure please RSVP to doug@douglaspaulson.com
	Tattfoo Tan Open Secret 393 17th Street #2A, Brooklyn Open Secret is an intervention between the artist, Tattfoo Tan, a home owner, and the public. Open Secret investigates the junction between private and public by using invisible paint and black lights to reveal secrets in the privacy of a home.
	Lauren Wilcox An Instrument for Viewing the Contents of a Room 213 Montrose Apt 2 (2nd floor) Brooklyn, 11206 (Crossstreet Bushwick Ave.) Sat 11 am – 6 pm, Sun 11 – 4pm To paint perspective during the Renaissance artists used Alberti’s Grid, a device which projects a scene onto a flat screen. This installation is a version of that device, a box that captures a room’s elements, both actual and unseen, and translates them, inside, into objects both literal and abstract.
	Kim Holleman Trailer Park Foley Square Sat and Sun: 10-8pm This mobile living park, converted from a 14′ x 8′ x 7′ standard aluminum trailer, is an oasis surrounded by the bustling sights and sounds of the city.

Living Room is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Queens Council on the Arts, as well as generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts,
and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

June – August 2008

Going Places (Doing Stuff) Flux Factory invites New Yorkers to take a tour with artists who have become tour guides for the city. For six weeks, the general public can sign up for personally designed artist tours that range from a single afternoon to 3 days. The content of the tours are entirely up to the artists, though where you will be going is secret. Even to you!

Each tour has simply the following information: the artist, a title, a duration, and a list of needed supplies. In other words, when you sign up for a tour, you know what to bring and how long you will be gone, but you will have no idea where you are actually going or what you will experience.

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

All tours will meet at 38-38 43rd Street unless otherwise indicated.

TOUR DATES

PAST TOURS:

Saturday, June 14th

Action & Direction with Matt Levy

TOUR DURATION: Day trip
WEAR: Comfortable shoes, clothes you don’t mind getting a little bit dirty (some walking in muddy areas might be involved)
BRING: Plenty of water, bring some money for lunch, drinks and souvenirs

About the artist: Matt Levy is a born-and-bred Brooklynite (represent!), a licensed NYC tour guide, an ex-poet, current romantic, urban historian and spectacle enthusiast.  His blog, Action & Direction (the two major requirements for a fully adventurous life) is mostly about NYC cultural history and spectacle. He is also the event coordinator at the City Reliquary Museum in Brooklyn. His knowledge of New York City and his rambunctious personality make him the greatest guide you could wish for.

http://actiondirection.blogspot.com/

Sunday, June 29th

The Pennsyltucky Expedition with Douglas Paulson

TOUR DURATION: Day trip
WEAR: Comfortable shoes, clothes you don’t mind getting a little bit dirty
BRING: Some money for lunch, drinks and souvenirs
PROVIDED: Safety goggles, gloves, respirators and an MRA s’mores kit.

About the artist: In addition to his own work, Douglas Paulson joins Copenhagen’s Parfyme to become Parfyme Deluxe, and collaborates with Ward Shelley.  Based in Long Island City, Queens, he works in New York and Europe, and got his BFA from Tyler School of Art in 2003. Among other things, his work deals with urban exploration on land and water, and turning everyday experiences into extraordinary adventures.

http://www.douglaspaulson.com

Sunday, July 6th

I LIVE ON REICHERT AVENUE with Annie Reichert

TOUR DURATION: Day trip, roughly 7am to 7pm
WEAR: Comfortable shoes, sunblock, sunglasses, and a big shoulder bag
BRING: $10-$100 in small bills and a camera, booze whatever.
PROVIDED: morning coffee, water, and a big afternoon meal

About the artist: Annie Reichert is from Seattle, New Jersey, and Ohio. Annie enjoys photography, eavesdropping, gold paint, fake blood, hiding spots, good storytellers, and talking about building things. Professionally, she keeps busy but rarely profits from it: her pictures have been published in USA Today and US News & World Report for free! As an artist, she is interested in making oblique references to her childhood, hoping that no one will notice. Annie has a BA in Photography and Film Theory from Antioch College. These days she is working with photo, video, fabric, and food.

Saturday, July 12th

WANDERING RESTAURANT with Gary Wiseman

TOUR DURATION: Day trip, 10 am to 9pm
Wandering restaurant mostly caters to omnivores but vegetarians and vegans are welcome to attend.

About the artist: From March 2006 to January 2008, Gary Wiseman produced 30 interactive performances under the heading Tea Project in collaboration with Red 76, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Cooley Memorial Gallery at Reed College and hundreds of performers and participants. Wiseman is currently engaged in numerous smaller scale collaborations and ongoing projects such as Personal Favorite Places (an ongoing exploration of the world through the experience of strangers), Ephemeral Temple Ltd (Purveyors of high quality low overhead temporary sacred-space), Penny For Your Thoughts (with Amy Steel) and T-Folk: Granville and Reginald Sing the Sacred Songs For You which debuts at the upcoming Artcity festival in Calgary, Alberta.

Saturday, July 19th

WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF NEXT? with Flux Factory senior trio: Jean Barberis, Stefany Anne Golberg and Morgan Meis

TOUR DURATION: Day trip, 10am to 9pm

Precise instructions including dress code and what to bring will be send out with the RSVP.

August 16 and 17th – double tour!

THE SECRET LIFE OF FRANKLIN CRUMP with David Felix Sutcliffe

A secret two-day bus tour.  Click here for more info!

August 23rd

With Jeff Stark

SOLD OUT

---

GOING PLACES (DOING STUFF) is made possible with public funds from New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Queens Council on the Arts, as well as generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Materials for the Arts.

the last show at 38-38 43rd Street

April 4, 2008 €“ April 27, 2008

Opening:
Fri, Apr 4th, 7pm
w/ performance by KapOw!

Closing:
Sat, Apr 26th, 8pm
w/ Make It Go, dance party!

click here or on whale to enter exhibit site..

w/ artists:
Morgan Meis, Shalin Scupham, Angie Kang, Sarah Glidden, Mikala Hyldig Dal, Mitch Dickson, Leonora Retsas, Lisa Dillin, James Rouvelle, Annie Reichert, Douglas Paulson, Coco Gordon,
Carl Ferrero, Carla Aspenberg, Anthony Rhoads, Andrea Dezso, Debra Marie Drexler, Eleanor Lovinsky, Junko Shimizu, Miwa Koizumi, Marie Losier, Brandan Doty, Rémi Marie, Carly Liebman,
Laurie Stone and Richard Toon, Ethan Weinstock, Amelia Geocos, Zoë Cohen, Anibal Catalan, Meg Duguid, Nick Yulman, Nicole Tucker, John Roach, Nick Normal, Bridget Parris, François Leloup-Collet, Carrie Fucile, Johannes DeYoung, Justin Braun, Jay Braun, Ranjit Bhatnagar, Mikey Barringer, Marion Arnaud, and others.

Soon, very soon, the Flux Factory space at 38-38 43rd Street will be demolished. In anticipation of this event, we are turning the entirety of Flux Factory into a giant installation of itself.

For the past six years, Flux Factory has developed its gallery and aesthetics laboratory at our space in Long Island City. We have had scores of shows and many hundreds of artists have graced these halls. Now it must all be destroyed. Our entire block will be razed by the pitiless bulldozers of the MTA. Everything Must Go. Alas, such is the fate of all terrestrial things. So, to mark the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, we’re inviting artists to transform all of Flux into one giant installation. An orgy of aesthetics that takes the whole building as its raw material. The stuff of Flux will be the subject for videos, sculptures, installations, and performances. There will be an ongoing garage sale featuring Flux ephemera you always wanted (or didn’t want) from Flux, a Best-Of Flux Thursday Salon performance, and other special surprises. There will be a live feed transmitting works by Flux Factory artists from around the globe, a Flux Factory lotto machine, a bedroom transformed into a golden shrine, an opera, and so very much more.

EVERYTHING MUST GO will not be Flux Factory’s last show ever. But it will be the last show we have at 38-38 43rd Street. Be a part of the little death!

EVERYTHING MUST GO is made possible with public funds from New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Queens Council on the Arts, as well as generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Materials for the Arts, and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

a Flux Factory collaboration at ABC No Rio:

Prospect Park Peninsula, Brooklyn, NY

October 3rd €“ November 16th

Opening reception: Sunday, October 7th, 2007. 12pm-4pm

Click Here for a map of Prospect Park

Click here for directions to Prospect Park

About Anytime, Now. Somewhere, Here.

A couple of years ago, I found a diary written by a man named Henry sitting in a box on top of a stack of old books near Prospect Park. The diary contains thoughts and drawings for six structures meant to be built in and around Prospect Park. I’ve decided, in time, to build all six, using Henry’s drawings as a guide. Anytime, Now. Somewhere, Here: Peninsula, is the first. It contains a song written using diary entries and free copies of excerpts from Henry’s diary are made available to the public.

Click here to read excerpts from Henry’s Diary

This project is part of the NYC Department of Parks & Recreations 40th Anniversary of Art in the Parks

Stefany Anne Golberg was reared in a Science-fearing household in an overlarge house in Las Vegas, NV. She received a BA in Philosophy from Eugene Lang College at the New School for Social Research and has an MFA in Music/Sound from Milton Avery Graduate School of Arts, Bard College. Stefany is a founding member and Executive Director of the arts collective Flux Factory.

€”Excerpt from Henry’s journalI had a curious dream. I was in the park, alone, completely alone, at that moment between light and dark, and I felt in the dream, I felt that I was waiting for darkness to come but it didn’t€¦all around the park, I saw these strange constructions, by the carousel, on Sullivan Hill€¦In the dream I counted six in all€¦And when I awoke in the morning, with the dream as fresh in my mind as any waking thought I had ever had, I said to myself

I AM A CABINET

Special thanks to Clare Weiss, Arielle Dorlester, and the Public Art Program at NYC Parks & Recreation; Tupper Thomas, Jasmine Haynes, and the Prospect Park Alliance.

Anytime, Now. Somewhere, Here. would not have been possible without the generous support of the following:

Lou Ann Alsip, Gloria Fenster, Howard & Joan Golberg, Terrence Hardcastle, Elaine Meis, and Flux Factory, Inc.

The artists in Secret Clubhouse #2 received a key to the LMCC space at 125 Maiden Lane. They alone listened to the phone messages from Secret Clubhouse #1 but never went to that space. Listening to the messages, they created graphical representations of and responses to the descriptions they heard. The events at Secret Clubhouse #1 were thus translated through verbal descriptions to the artists at Secret Clubhouse #2 and now take on a second life on the walls of 125 Maiden Lane. Including works from: Sarah Glidden, Andrea Dezsö, Daupo, David Sandlin, Eun-Ha Paek, Lauren Berke, Fay Ryu

In Secret Clubhouse #1, a still-unrevealed location in a warehouse in Long Island City, artists have been working for six months. Each artist received a key to the space but had no idea what they would find. Each artist was given two weeks to produce work based on whatever was left behind by previous artists. None of the artists know each other, yet each has the same task: to solve the unfinished aesthetic ‘problems’ left behind and create new challenges for the next artists. As they work, they leave phone messages on an answering service explaining what the space looks like as they’ve found it, what they have changed, and why.

Special thanks to Radhika Subramaniam and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council for their support of this project. And special thanks to The Believer Magazine, which will publish a story about the project in the coming year.

December 14, 2007 – January 2008

Opening, Friday Dec. 14th, 2007 – 7pm

CLICK HERE FOR NYNYNY INSTALLATION VIEW

Opening night performances by:
Miwa Koizumi: New York Flavors Ice Cream
Matt Levy: Action, Direction, Creation presents: Interactive activity

“Manhattan is an accumulation of possible disasters that never happen.”
–Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York (1978)

Curated by Jean Barberis, Melanie Cohn, and Chen Tamir. Original concept by Jean Barberis.

Panel Discussion: Sunday, January 6, 4pm

Closing reception: Saturday, January 12, 6pm. With Film Program curated by Marie Losier, 7pm-8pm

Gallery hours: Fridays €“ Sundays, 1-5pm. Closed Dec. 23rd and 30th.

Imagine Coney Island’s Dreamland, Steeplechase, and Luna Park reborn. Imagine a sea monster in the East River, a volcano erupting in Manhattan, Midtown in ruins. The contemporary brownstones of Cobble Hill buried beneath its original namesake hill, a big whale in the place of the Museum of Natural History, and The New York Crystal Palace returned to 42^nd Street.

In short, a New York City that is the forgotten past and the fantastic future all at once. A New York City where anything is possible.

New York, New York, New York is an interactive, multimedia installation. It is a continuation of Flux Factory’s interest in urban landscapes and takes inspiration from the Panorama, Robert Moses’ scale model of New York City in the Queens Museum of Art. Members of the Flux Factory art collective will work in collaboration with over 100 artists from all five boroughs and around the world to re-imagine the public and private spaces of New York.

Each artist will contribute a building, a landmark, a street, an avenue, a block, a park, a neighborhood, an expressway, a bridge, an island, an airport€”one or several elements of the urban environment. All of these individual works will be combined to produce a cohesive yet chaotic installation, a multimedia, scale-model of the city. Instead of being an exact replica to scale of the city of New York, this project offers a mental map, a replica of an imaginary New York. The goal of the show is to explore the architectural and conceptual elements of everyday space. It is an investigation into the collective unconscious of the cultural capital of the planet: The sum of all of New York’s potential exposed in a great experiment in psychogeography.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Boris Achour, Sandy Amerio, Carla Aspenberg, Leah Beeferman, Dominique Blais, Lise Brenner/Uli Lorimer/Katrina Simon, Adam Brent, Adam David Brown, Jason David Brown, Ben Bunch, Paul Burn, Ian Burns, Matthew Callinan, Anibal Catalan, Emmy Catedral/Valerie Opielski, Andrea Christens/ Takashi Horisaki, Emily Clark, Cluster8 (Parsons the New School for Design), Lewis Colburn, Daupo, Johannes De Young, Andrea Dezsö, Brandan Doty, Thomas Doyle, Kerry Downey/Alan Resnick, Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Montpelier, Gregor Eldarb, Stephane Gilot, Tamara Gubernat, Ira Joel Haber, Aya Kakeda, Devrim Kadirbeyoglu, Israel Kandarian, Stephanie Koenig, Miwa Koizumi, Yunmee Kyong, Katerina Lanfranco, Maria Levitsky, Matt Levy, Ellen Lindner, Katja Loher, Marie Lorenz/Douglas Paulson, Molly Lowe, Marian Macken, Mapping it Out (Eugene Lang College/The New School for Liberal Arts), Evie McKenna, Mary-Anne McTrowe, Greg Martin, Simone Meltesen, Ian Montgomery, Kirsten Mosher, Martina Mrongovius, Joel Morrison/Hiroshi Shafer, Heidi Neilson, Jo Q. Nelson, Rashaad Newsome, Lothar Osterburg, Miguel Palma, Gail Pickett, Bridget Parris, Bruno Persat, Annie Reichert, Leonora Retsas, Renée Ridgway, Jaimie Robson/Kristal Stevenot, Karl Saliter, Jon Sasaki, Jean Shin, Mike Peter Smith, Soft City (Rose Bianchini, Sarah Couture McPhail, Yvonne Ng, Catherine Stinson, Jason van Horne), Claudia Sohrens, George Spencer, Joel Braden Stoehr, Etosha Terryll, Nick Tobier, Joseph Craig Tompkins, Momoyo Torimitsu,Christopher Ulivo, Gabriela Vainsencher, Jason Van Horne, Vydavy Sindikat/Anytime Development, Lee Walton, Barbara Westermann, Lauren Wilcox, and Ian Wojtowicz.

Parfyme Deluxe attempts to intimidate Flux Factory!!!! Click to watch!!!

But Fluxers are hard to scare!!!!

Parfyme Deluxe challenges Flux Factory to a true-blue capitalist competition. The dueling art-enterprises will divide Flux Factory, creating DeluxeFactory. The two factories will race to out-produce and out-sell the other. Each week will be a new product(s) assignment, demanding the entrepreneurs radically alter their factories and production methods. Each collective will hit the streets to deliver their innovations. Fantastic delivery trucks, espionage and sabotage will be just some of the tricks of the trade. Whoever sells the most wins.

DeluxeFactory is a collaboration between New York/Copenhagen-based collective Parfyme Deluxe and Flux Factory.

DeluxeFactory: Bring your checkbook

Production Line
Hosted by Flux Factory, we will return Flux Factory to its original state – a factory. On conveyer belts, with big machines, a lunch-break whistle and on a 8-5 schedule, each group will go to work: producing objects, trinkets, and curios. For three weeks, at the end of each week, right on schedule, rain or shine, we will load up our truck and peddle our wares throughout New York City.

A Three-Part Perfect Competition
As any production unit, we will be judged by the market and the costs of production. What market and what costs? – The rules and conditions will change for each new product: what is available for input, output, distribution and purpose. Constraints of all kinds will force each factory to apply new procedures and strategies to become successful. The fate of the products will be determined by consumers.

The Factory
The Flux Factory space will be divided: half for Flux, half for Deluxe. Neither outfit will be able to see the other, but above each factory will be a foreman’s catwalk, allowing spectators to walk over each factory, monitoring production, critiquing diligence. A few choice products will not be shipped out, but will go to two Factories’ showroom, where, despite the possibly grim working conditions of the Factories, the products will be displayed tastefully, bathed in futuristic lighting.

Competition
Each outfit will work to dominate the market, attempting to drive the other out of business – or just stay afloat. We see in this show a very meaningful way to expand the way artists work together, as individuals and as groups, by working in a competitive atmosphere while needing to collaborate. By putting pressure on each other and creating a sense of interdependence, well both explore the means by which each artist produces and creates objects and working methods.

For information about Parfyme Deluxe:
www.parfymedeluxe.com
www.parfyme.dk
www.douglaspaulson.com

*****DELUXEFACTORY WORK SCHEDULE*****

Note: Visitors can come to Flux Factory to watch the production process during the week by appointment.
Call 718-707-3362.

WEEK ONE: New Product
Teams create a mass-produced consumer good

Saturday, September 15, 7pm:
Opening Party

Sunday, September 16, 12-5pm: DeluxeFactory goes to the Conflux Block Party to sell their wares (http://confluxfestival.org/conflux2007)

WEEK TWO: Beach Brawl
Wrestling Franchises flex their really big muscles

Saturday, September 22, 1-5pm: Factories race to mass-produce co-branded cans of whoop-ass

Sunday, September 23, 1-5pm: Wrestlers duke it out at Coney Island while support crews sell memorabilia. Meet at the parachute jump at the end of the boardwalk.

WEEK THREE: Battle of the Boy Bands

Saturday, September 29, 1 -5pm: Boy Bands make videos, costumes, t-shirts, etc.

Sunday, September 30, 1-5pm: Boy Bands rehearse and make products

CLOSING PARTY: Friday, October 5, 8pm
Boy Bands battle it out! A winner is chosen!

DeluxeFactory is made possible with public funds from: The Danish Arts Council / DaNY Arts. New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Queens Council on the Arts, as well as generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts,
The Greenwall Foundation, and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Flux Factory is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization

Welcome to the city of lofty courtyards, flying gardens, and earszikha!

Click to see DOCUMENTATION OF OUR WORK HERE IN BUDAPEST

This summer, Flux Factory partners with the Hungarian Cultural Center in New York and a group of Hungarian artists and architecture students from the Szent József Studió Kollégium to bring the Pavilion for the City of Budapest New York to the 2007 Sziget Festival in Budapest.

Taking its cue from two ride/exhibitions from the 1939 New York World’s Fair€”GM’s Futurama and the iconic Democracity€”the Budapest New York pavilion will be a mechanical ride that takes visitors around a scale model of the imaginary city of Budapest New York. The model will blend architectural elements from both cities to create a cityscape that is tantalizingly recognizable yet entirely unique.

The festival runs from August 8-15 and we will be in Budapest for 5 weeks building, so if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and drink some pálinka with us. And don’t forget to follow documentation of the project starting in July on the Hungarian Center website.

The project is also co-sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Participating Artists:

Albatross
Flux Factory at Socrates Scultpure Park
May 6th – August 5th, 2007

July 1 – July 14: Exhibit at Flux Factory

an artistic collaboration between Flux Factory and an entire city.

Opening Party: Saturday, June 2,
4pm at the Paterson Museum, Paterson, NJ

Paterson participants

Jean Barberis, Mikey Barringer, Angela Beallor, Jason David Brown, Christine Conforti, Joseph Costa, Giacomo De Stefano, Alita Edgar, eteam, Neil Freeman, Dana Gramp, The Ivanhoe Artists Mosaic of Paterson, Suzanne Joelson, Branden Koch, Don Kommit, Joe Milutis, The Paterson Museum, Leonora Retsas, Joe Ruffilo, Shuli Sade, Ruth Stanford.

*Conceived and Organized by Stefany Anne Golberg and Morgan Meis*

EVENTS & TOURS DIRECTIONS TO PATERSON

TELL US YOUR MONUMENT IDEAS

I guess the Paterson area is where I had a lot of my contact with quarries and I think that is somewhat embedded in my psyche. As a kid I used to go and prowl around all those quarries. And of course, they figured strongly in Paterson. When I read the poems I was interested in that, especially this one part of Paterson where it showed all the strata levels under Paterson. Sorta proto-conceptual art, you might say. Later on I wrote an article for Artforum on Passaic which is a city on the Passaic River south of Paterson. In a way I think it reflects that whole area. Williams did have a sense of that kind of New Jersey landscape.
€“Robert Smithson

Paterson, New Jersey is a special place. Founded as the first planned industrial city by Alexander Hamilton and others, it played a major role in the development of the United States as an industrial powerhouse and economically independent nation. But Paterson has also worked its way into the cultural imagination of the United States. William Carlos Williams wrote an extended lyrical poem in five books, taking Paterson as his title and subject of inquiry. The important American artist Robert Smithson considered Paterson and the surrounding Passaic Valley to be a source of inspiration for his earth works. Indeed, Paterson and the American Imagination seem deeply connected.

Flux Factory explores this connection by organizing a unique art event and exhibit called Paterson. Working in collaboration with the Paterson Museum in Paterson’s historic mill district, Flux has assembled a team of artists, designers, architects, and urban planners who will develop plans for a proposed monument to Paterson. A space set aside for us within the Paterson Museum acts as a monument headquarters and is open to the public on a daily basis. Citizens of Paterson are encouraged to present their ideas, concerns, dreams, and desires to the team. There is also a schedule of open forums, tours, presentations, walks, and parties. For six weeks, members of the team, as well as the general public in Paterson and in the Tri-State area, will have the opportunity to experience Paterson in all its facets.

As in every Flux Factory project, the emphasis is on collaboration and a process that is open-ended by design. Everyone involved will address a central question: What is a monument’s role and how does the establishment of a monument affect a community?

At the end of this six-week period, an official proposal will be presented to the City of Paterson that reflects the experiences, thoughts, and ideas of the team. What happens with the proposal from then on will be the choice of the people of Paterson.

PROJECT GOALS

The goal of this project is to develop a plan, through a creative collaborative process, for a monument to Paterson that will be built in Paterson. It is quite possible that this project will culminate in the actual construction of a monument. But in a very real sense, the more important part of the project is the process itself. That is where the ideas and interests of Patersonians and outside artists will be tapped and explored. This is what is most exciting about the project and where it is genuinely unique. There are a lot of energies just beneath the surface of Paterson, both in terms of the hopes and dreams of its residents and in the latent historical memories of the place itself. The Paterson monument proposal will be a focusing point for those hopes and energies.

Sert, Leger, and Giedion wrote in the €˜Nine Points on Monumentality’:
Monuments are the expression of man’s highest cultural needs. They have to satisfy the eternal demand of the people for translation of their collective force into symbols. The most vital monuments are those which express the feeling and thinking of this collective force€”the people.

What is a monument? Is it an ode to bygone days? A celebration of the past or an expression of the future? We think that Paterson will create an artwork out of the process of thinking through these questions. Most fundamentally, this project carries forward an idea of collaboration that animates everything we do at Flux Factory. Flux Factory projects are always about bringing groups of people together in order to create an experience. In this case, the idea of collaboration is being pushed to a whole new level: a collaboration that involves an entire city. Indeed, more than an entire city, since a basic assumption of this project is that Paterson is a lens through which one can discover things about the American experience in general and potentially involve people from all over the world.

As William Carlos Williams once wrote:

Yet there is
no return: rolling up out of chaos,
a nine months’ wonder, the city
the man, an identity€”it can’t be
otherwise€”an
interpenetration, both ways.
€¦
divided as the dew,
floating mists, to be rained down and
regathered into a river that flows
and encircles:
shells and animalcules
generally and so to man,

to Paterson.
€˜Paterson‘ is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Queens Council on the Arts, as well as generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Greenwall Foundation, and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Morgan and Stefany on patersononline.net (no, we didn’t intend to dress the same that day…)

March 9th- April 12th, 2007
Opening: Friday, March 9th, 7pm

Our story begins with Troy Hurtubise who was attacked by a grizzly bear in the Canadian Rockies. Troy survived and decided that he would one day return to the Rockies, this time fully prepared to win. Cut to director Peter Lynch, who created a documentary called Project Grizzly about Troy and his quest to create a grizzly-proof suit. It is one man’s obsession to defeat nature. In the film, Troy has his friends test his suit in various violent ways (ramming trucks, flying logs, etc.) and then heads to the heart of Grizzly country for an adventure that ends, unceremoniously, in failure.

Flux Factory has invited artists from around the world to create their own response to Troy’s body of work and life’s ambition. Artists were asked to take on the age-old theme of human-versus-nature, the conflicting desire to understand the natural and to commune with it, and the need to control its cruelest aspects. Just as Project Grizzly addresses one man’s obsession with invincibility it also gives voice to a dream that is at the heart of the human experience. Troy’s dream may be a little bit insane, but it is moving nonetheless.

Please join us in exploring, uncovering, and paying tribute to this extraordinary narrative.

ARTISTS
Kristoffer Ardena, Dominique Blais, Paul Burn, Johannes DeYoung, Lisa Dillin,
Chris Hackett & Eleanor Lovinsky, Aya Kakeda, Katerina Lanfranco, Fabienne Lasserre,
Marie Losier & Sebastien Sanz de Santamaria, Peter Lynch, Ian Montgomery,
Motomichi Nakamura, Frank Olive & Rudy Shepherd, Douglas Paulson, Bruno Persat, Hideki Takahashi, Hiroshi Shafer, Shawn Spencer.

Gallery Hours: Saturdays & Sundays 12-4pm and by appointment.
please contact: jean at fluxfactory.org

READ ABOUT ‘GRIZZLY PROOF’ IN

SPECIAL EVENTS:

Friday, March 16th at 8pm, LIVE MUSIC
Chris Black from the Golden Arm Trio
Sex with an Angel

Sunday, March 18th at 2pm, DIORAMA DAY
* Katerina Lanfranco presents
“Myths of Nature in Art, Science, and Religion: From Dioramas to Dogmas”

*Aya Kakeda teaches a hands-on how-to diorama workshop
We provide all materials! FREE!

VIEW DOCUMENTATION OF THIS EVENT

Thursday, April 12 at 8pm, CLOSING
Bear-themed party
With special performance by artist Johannes DeYoung
*wear a costume and/or prepare to dance!
BYOBear

PAST
View Nick Normal’s pics of the opening

Special one-night screening of
“Project Grizzly” –the film that inspired the show!
Presented by director Peter Lynch with follow-up Q & A
New Center Cinema
4217 Queens Blvd.
Sunnyside, NY 11104
718-361-6869

Why Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International?

Well, it’s quite a monument. Of course, it isn’t a monument at all, having never been built. But it is a striking and impressive idea for a monument. The model for it alone is unforgettable in pictures and drawings. It is a bold piece of work. Lacking any definitive function, it is the testament to a need, a desire, a concept. Pushing the very boundaries of human technological capacity at the time, it could only have been built using the newest methods in metal engineering and construction. It is an optimistic monument. You cannot look at the monument without thinking of the future and of human possibility. It is solid and dynamic at the same time. It portrays movement with purpose. It is beautiful.

Why €˜conceived in the mood of ambivalence’?

It is all form and no content. It is the idea of human possibility without any articulation of what human possibility actually looks and feels like. With so much life, it is dead. It is an ideal monument in the good sense, but in the bad sense as well. There’s no debate in it, no place for the contested milieu of civil society. It can’t be amended or changed, it just is. It would have to exist outside the boundaries of day to day urban life; alone, infinite, empty.

What do we mean by €˜response’?

Our monument will be Tatlin’s monument plus all the mess of lived experience. It’s the €˜hands-on’ approach to utopia. It will change and transform during its lifetime according to the fights and discussions and ideas of the people who interact with it. And so, it will have a beginning and an end. It will be finite. To put it simply, our tower will be the kind of place you’d actually want to spend some time in. It will have a café. It will have a room for napping. And still, it will gesture to something beyond what we are now, to a better version of ourselves that we still hope to attain, whether or not we know how.

ARTISTS

Briony Barr is English and Australian but has called New York home for the past 6 years. The daughter of a painter and a picture-framer, a life in art was on always on the cards and indeed, she has made a lot of drawings and other things in her time. Recent work has ranged from plotting the movements of a waiter on the floor of a restaurant with tape to making time-lapse drawings of people moving through customs at the airport. Most recently she worked with fellow friend of Flux Martina Mrongovius to create a line structure, grown over several weeks on a fence in Queens. Briony’s work can be seen as part of the viewing program at The Drawing Center and in Pierogi 2000′s Flat Files. She is currently having a solo drawing show in Mexico City.

Mikey Barringer studied at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and at Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg, Germany. There he learned how to act, make films, and speak German. All three skills have turned out to be quite useful for life at Flux Factory, and you’d think it was somehow meant to be that way. This is his first show.

Ranjit Bhatnagar has been exhibiting sound sculpture and alternative musical instruments since 1995, such as the Silence Organ and the MIDI Ironing Board. Recently, Ranjit has taught students at Parsons School of Design to make their own instruments and play in a band, contributed robotic musical instruments to Flux Factory’s Fluxbox show, and to Artbots NYC at the Location One gallery in SOHO. A selection of his photos are currently on exhibit at the Atlantic Avenue subway station in Brooklyn.

Jason David Brown

Mikala Hyldig Dal was born 1979 in the medieval city of Aarhus, Denmark. She is now an inhabitant of the great city of Berlin, Germany, a student of the infamous University of Arts Berlin studying media art, experimental film, graphic-, photographic- & digital design. Mikala is concerned about the transformation of 3-d space into a 2-d realm and vice versa, an ongoing subject matter being architecture on tape. A recurrent strategy is the intertwining of analogue and digital media creating hybrid visual expressions, in general trying to accomplish radical abstractions of source material (/subject matter) in the recording process rather than in the post-production.

Daupo is the Neo-Primitivist Folk Collective of One, and is known to the mundane world as David Gassaway. R.T.T.M.T.T.T.I.C.I.T.M.O.A. is his umpteenth collaboration with Flux Factory, with which he has dressed funny, made watercolour paintings, auctioneered, cartographed, demolished, constructed, construed, and conceived. Left to his own devices he is a draughtsman more than anything else.

Marie-Eve Jetzer believes in the multitude of the I. After her Central Swiss Ministry of Culture and Education residency in New York is over, she is looking to settle down in the city of the great and the mighty at least on a semipermanent basis. After graduating from Glasgow School of Art a few years ago, she has been working as a multi-mixed media artist and very much enjoys the materialshuffling spaceshifting explorations of her mental realm. If anybody has a room to spare from the beginning of next year please let her know.

Born-n-bred in St. Louis, Missouri, Nick Normal pursued his undergraduate degree overseas at Central St. Martin’s College of Art & Design (London, UK) where he graduated with ‘honours’ in Fine Arts (and unbelievably, he didn’t pick up an accent, although he does now drink his body weight in tea every week). With a firm approach to working with whatever he can get his hands and mind on, Nick enjoys making scale models, maquettes and installations and buying dollar-store items to integrate into his surroundings – that is, both his life and his work. He is also a lifelong biblioholic, which has recently turned into assembling an ‘expansive library’ of cardboard books. Nick is also building an archive of press releases, postcards, flyers, brochures, etc. related to art exhibitions – in progress now since November 2003, it is estimated at 3,000 individual items and spans a plethora of three- and four-ring binders.

Emma Stone Mackinnon believes in both collectives and solitude. Growing up in Brooklyn, she learned to love other people; getting her degree from Harvard, she learned some philosophy and political theory, and also managed to learn to love making installations with other people (especially others of the Reasonable People’s League). She learned to make ice cream in Boston, ice cream capital of North America, at Toscanini’s, where Daupo also once worked (he made the cakes). These days, when not at Flux Factory, Emma spends most of her time doing political media strategy at Fenton Communications.

Ian Montgomery was trained as a carpenter and furniture maker. His current work combines found materials with organic patterns and processes. Ian received his B.A. in Studio Arts at Bard College in 2003 and was an Artist-in-Residence at the Lacoste School of the Arts in 2002. He received international attention for his project in Flux Factory’s NOVEL show.

Annie Reichert swears she is from Seattle, New Jersey, and Ohio. She enjoys photography, eavesdropping, gold paint, fake blood, avocados, good storytellers, and building things–even though she’s not very skilled at it. Professionally she keeps busy but rarely profits from it: her pictures have been published in USA Today and US News and World Report for free! As an artist, she is interested in making oblique references to her childhood, hoping that no one will notice. Annie has surprisingly soft hands and wishes she could tell lies better and less often.

Ksenya Samarskaya is a designer-artist-inventor concerned with narrating and structuring grandiose plans for the minutiae. Notwithstanding, it often ends up the other way around. She lives in Brooklyn, is fond of rotating dinners and would love to hear from you if you happen to have an electric kiln or a letterpress that you no longer care for.

Matthew Slaats is the new kid on the block, making his preliminary excursion into the New York art scene. Working in a multitude of areas, his main interest is in engaging people through his process. He accomplishes this by recontextualizing spaces through performance. He recently worked in Singapore as a project manager for the Ong Keng Sen’s production Diaspora. Other work includes working as a production manager with theatre artist Richard Gough. In the meantime, he’s out exploring the already explored.

For press inquiries, contact stefany @ fluxfactory.org

THIS SATURDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:
Performances by Mr. Resistor and the George Galliano Jazz Trio starting at 7!
Ice Cream and Delicious snacks in the Kafeteriaeria!

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT TATLIN, HIS TOWER, AND CONSTRUCTIVISM,
HERE’S A GOOD PLACE TO START…CLICK NOW…

illustration by Briony Barr

illustration by Briony Barr

illustration by Daupo

illustration by Daupo

This past year, and especially the last few months, we began to notice the streets of WesternQueens becoming filled with new works of public art. More and more, it seems that the neighborhoods of Long Island City, Astoria, Sunnyside, and Woodside have become a laboratory for the latest in street art.

Further research revealed a hitherto unknown collective called Queens Blackout Division that has recently put out a call to artists asking them to produce art in the streets of Western Queens. They want artists to post information about the work on their website, queensblackoutdivision.net.

The more we thought about it over here at the old Flux Factory, the more we realized that we have something of a movement on our hands. Our show, therefore, is simply a concerted effort to get the public out on the streets and interacting with the work. To facilitate this interaction, we’re organizing audio tours, walking tours, bike tours, maps, and other material. The exact schedule for these tours will be posted on this site soon. By the opening of the show, September 23, most of this material will be easily downloaded directly from this site. These tours should be good fun and will all be different.

Our space on 43rd Street will become a video archive, headquarters, and giant map for charting all the work going on in the neighborhood.

Looking forward to seeing you out on the street!

CATALOGUE by Melanie Cohn
you may view and purchace a copy here

AUDIO TOUR BY STEFANY ANNE GOLBERG and MORGAN MEIS
Download tour here (zipped folder, mp3 format)
Instructions: There is currently one Audio Tour. Listen to all individual tracks in order.

VIDEOS
Showing in the Flux Factory space: Open Air by Knox, a street art documentary starring ESPO, Marco, Dan Witz, FAILE, Michael De Feo, Skewville, Tiki Jay-One, Lou. www.myspace.com/openairstreetart

MAPS
Map are free and downloadable. Print one out and see the streets of Queens on your own.

TOURS-All tours meet at Flux Factory at 3pm unless otherwise indicated.
Bikes for bike tours will NOT be provided by Flux Factory.

Sunday, September 24: Bike tour with Jean Barberis

Saturday, September 30: Walking tour with Andrea Dezsö
THIS TOUR IS NOT MEETING AT FLUX FACTORY! Meet at 3 pm on Ditmars Blvd. in front of the Starbucks. Take the N or W to Astoria get off at the last stop, the Starbucks store is right there at the end of the elevated train as you come down the stairs.
(***more info below)

Sunday, October 1st: Bike tour with Kerry Downey

Saturday, October 7th: OPEN HOUSE NEW YORK WEEKEND!
and Walking tour with Melanie Franklin Cohn

Sunday, October 8th: OPEN HOUSE NEW YORK WEEKEND!
and Bike tour with Ellen Kleckner

Saturday, October 14th: Walking tour with Meg Duguid

Sunday, October 15th: TBA

Saturday, October 21st: Street Tour and Pub Crawl with Morgan Meis and Ellen Kleckner

***Andrea Dezsö and Adam Gurvitch: Chasing Berch Walking Tour

High Art, Low Art, No Art – Berch in Queens

Depending on one’s class and neighborhood, many Americans’ exposure to ‘art’ is limited to what they see in advertisement: billboards, TV commercials, product packaging, calendars; homes, bars, and shops display reprints of vintage beverage logos, travel posters, and promos for movies and music.

Astoria and Long Island City, solidly working class neighborhoods being revived foremost through immigration and increasingly through gentrification, are distinguished by a streak of nostalgic painting on shop windows and exterior walls by the artist Berch. Berch has given the neighborhood a subtle, defined visual brand invoking the American dream of the neighborhood’s Italian, Irish, and Greek settlers of decades ago. Berch’s street paintings depict Easter feasts, Christmas regalia, autumnal bounties, Greek New Year’s delicacies, fruit cornucopias, bouquets, loaves of peasant bread, and crisp pizzas.

Berch gives us an expression of enduring aspirations, a common thread extending the desires of the neighborhood’s established ethnic enclaves to the newest generation of settlers who seek the neighborhood’s promise. Walking the neighborhood’s commercial avenues from Broadway to Ditmars, residents of western Queens are enticed to indulge in each new season’s festivities and the idealized goods on offer inside the shops that Berch has adorned. Forego the latest, hippest trends, and Berch will point you to family businesses that have sustained Astorians for generations with prosciutto, Sicilian slices, stuffed grape leaves, fresh fruit, and all the rest.

Berch’s style is reminiscent of the commercial art of an earlier period. His content and subject matter are strictly proscribed, but he paints with a free hand. After September 11th, 2001, Berch contributed to the city’s burgeoning impromptu wall memorial movement. His work is distinctive enough that you can always recognize a Berch without having to see the signature, which is high praise for any street artist. We’ve sought out Berch, but haven’t yet been able to speak with him.

So who is Berch, and what are we to make of his art? Are the neighborhood’s pervasive, custom hand-painted still lifes decoration, advertising, mural, or something beyond?

And Dubok Demolition Rok duo

————————————————–

OPOLIS presents Comix-Fluxture-as-city. Opolis is an imaginary city, located in the Flux Factory main space. Individual city blocks have been assigned to individual cartoonists and illustrators. These cartoonists have designed the buildings and environments that will fill the city blocks (an apartment building, a looming office skyscraper, a library, a public park…) with invented characters that are the citizens of Opolis.

OPOLIS is the third manifestation of Flux Factory’s annual Comix Fluxture exhibit. These exhibits have brought cartoonists and illustrators into the gallery to create comics narratives that also function as installation art. The ongoing objective of the series is to create works of art to be read intimately€”as a comic strip€”but also contribute to an overall installation spectacle.

OPOLIS was made possible from generous support by
THE GREENWALL FOUNDATION and
NEW YORK STATE COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS

FINAL OPEN HOURS:
Friday the 4th from 4 – 7 pm
Saturday the 5th starting at 12pm with closing party starting at 7pm.

PERFORMANCE BY BRIAN AND LEON DEWAN AT 8:30pm!
Brian Dewan and Leon Dewan will perform on the Dual Primate Console and
other handcrafted semi-automatic electronic instruments for the closing
party of OPOLIS, August 5th. The open-air performance will take place at
8:30 pm on the Flux Factory roof, a veritable drive-in-movie without the
movie. The Dual Primate Console requires two operators, and the Dewans will
weave together intertwining rhythms. In addition, two rhapsodic solo
instruments, the Swarmatron and Melody Gin, will also be featured.

MORE INFO HERE

FLUX FACTORY’S SPRING BENEFIT BAZAAR 2006

With donations by no less than 250 artists, from over 20 countries, on five continents! click here for details

Click here to view the embedded video.

READ ABOUT FluxBox in TIMEOUTNY!

AND IN THE NEW YORKER!

New Yorker (see bottom of page)

AND ON WNYC!

Soundcheck on WNYC (Yes, I got to meet Patti Lupone for about 2 glorious seconds and I know you are jealous…)

Get the limited edition FluxBox silkscreen nowish!!!

Take a look at some excellent photos of the opening from photographer Catherine Aman here.

Our first offering up for grabs is Bone Bleach by Jim Drain.

Jim Drain recently won the Baloise Prize at Art Basel, and the work is, well, amazing.

$350, unframed, dims: approx. 16″x16″

Interested parties should contact morgan@fluxfactory.org about purchasing this piece outright; as well, pay attention to this space over the next couple of months as we rotate all the (few) works that didn’t move at the Auction. it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, at least this lifetime.