502 Bad Gateway: Error is Shadow
August 6 – 30, 2026
Flux IV, 56-21 2nd Street
Open Saturdays & Sundays, noon – 6:00 pm or by appointment
Opening: Thursday, August 6, 6:00 – 9:00 pm, with an artist talk at 7:00 pm
“This place is not a place of honor… no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here.”
– excerpt from Nuclear Warnings For The Future: Trauth, K. M.; Hora, S. C. & Guzowski, R. V. November 1993.
Flux Factory is pleased to present Error is Shadow, a solo exhibition by artist duo 502 Bad Gateway. Error is Shadow explores the legacy of structural and cultural decay, monuments of shame, trans-civilizational communication, and post-human adaptivity. Mankind’s desire to justify its narrative purpose leaves it with only self-referential answers to impossible questions, building elaborate protocols that favor controllable results over truth. Through a network of paintings, sculptures, a narrative film, and a roguelike deckbuilder game, the work plays upon the human tendency to create needlessly complex systems when faced with the perilous unknown in an attempt to govern the ungovernable. Error is Shadow adds another forking branch to the wired network of conceptual storytelling that has been the cornerstone of 502 Bad Gateway’s artistic practice.
502 Bad Gateway: Error is Shadow is presented as part of the artists’ 2026 NYSCA Fellowship.
About the Artist
502 Bad Gateway is the artist duo of Alexander Baumann and Robert Ruth, whose collaborative artistic disciplines include motion capture performance, oil painting, 3D game development, sculpture, vintage tech restoration, building audio synthesizers, animation, and filmmaking. Their practice focuses on integrating their artistic methods with deprecated technologies from many different eras, drawing on the history of usage to underline the intent of the work.
Their work has been displayed in solo exhibitions at T293 gallery in Rome, Sof:Art gallery in Bologna, Flux Factory in New York, and as part of a group show at AROS art museum in Aarhus, Denmark. They have performed on stages at the New Museum’s DEMO Showcase in Manhattan, ZeroSpace in Brooklyn, Standard Vision Studios in Los Angeles, and many underground New York venues. Their performance practice includes solo audiovisual narrative productions as well as collaborations with Club Cringe, Von, Uffie, Kevin Peter He, Kink Out, and Team Rolfes.
With a foot in the world of experimental film and live performance, and the other in fine art and installation, 502 Bad Gateway desires to break the traditionally static, immutable nature of gallery work, by incorporating the real-time responsiveness of interactive live performance.
Media & Visitor Contact
Meghana Karnik, Curator & Exhibitions Director
meghana@fluxfactory.org
Accessibility
Flux IV is located on the ground floor of 56-21 2nd Street, Long Island City, NY 11101 between the Queens Landing Boathouse & Environmental Center and Gotham Point apartments. The closest bus stop is 2 St/55 Ave on the Q101. The closest subway station is Vernon Blvd-Jackson Ave on the 7 line (purple) and 21st st G line (green). The closest ferry pier is Hunter’s Point South Ferry Landing. A Citibike station is located at Center Blvd & Hunters Point South Ferry Landing. iPark (paid parking) is available on 1-20 56th Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101. There is a public restroom left of our front door.