Open Call for Group Exhibition “Pink Flamingo: Clubs in Flux”
Apply using this form by May 15, participants will be notified in late May
Email pinkflamingo@fluxfactory.org with any questions. All selected proposals will receive a $1000 stipend.
NYC nightclubs have always been a hotbed of creativity and have nurtured the early careers of countless talented musicians. These clubs have fostered powerful music scenes over the years, and many of them evolved into sacred spaces for dedicated local communities. However, all good things must come to an end, and as rapidly as nightclubs pop up in NYC they also shut their doors, due to gentrification, restrictive city laws and ordinances around nightlife, lack of money and support, senseless tragedies, and many other reasons.
Vivid multimedia archives of nightclub experiences can invoke visions of future social-cultural landscapes and inspire changes. The COVID-19 pandemic has created an even more urgent need for archiving due to the rapid rate of nightclubs shutting down and club communities being separated through isolation, in NYC and beyond. How do we hold on to and maintain the sense of community that underground club spaces consistently provide, as these fleeting moments in time end and then begin again?
OPEN CALL GUIDELINES
“Pink Flamingo: Clubs in Flux ” is a collaboration between Flux Factory and Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theatre.
This open call is for artists who want to imagine their ideal temporary club space and design it in the cell with conceptual and technical support of Flux Factory.
What would your ideal club environment look like? Who would you invite into the space? What music would you feature, and how would people interact with the sounds they hear? What memories would you like to make in your very temporary club?
Pink Flamingo: Clubs in Flux is made up of three successive club environments, each culminating in a club event that fully utilizes the space you have designed. The exhibition will conclude in a “closing” that will include documentation and ephemera from each of the clubs.
Accompanying these three installations will be an adjacent exhibition featuring multi-media archival materials that document the changing club culture in New York City over the decades.
This open call is for multidisciplinary artists, musicians and collectives who have a knack for curating a multimedia show. We are looking for artists with a clear vision and plan for creating your dream club space by utilizing both visual and musical elements in a cohesive way. We define “music” very broadly and are just as excited about receiving proposals that feature more experimental forms of sound-art, as we are about proposals that feature traditional club music genres such as house and techno. Ideally, you will have a potential lineup in mind for your main event that fits well with your overarching club concept.
Three installation proposals will be selected. Each artist or group of artists will be given four days for installation, two days for deinstallation, and be required to host at least one main event. Flux and the cell will arrange for thorough documentation of each installation, which can be subsequently added to the adjacent archival materials.
We are looking for artists/collectives who can evolve their ideas in three interconnected domains:
a) Physical (Using the cell to create a multimedia club installation)
b) Audio / Music (Sound that activates the space)
c) Performative (Organizing an event/party that utilizes your space to bring people together through music)
Preference will be given to works that carve out space for communities of marginalized identities and experiences, based on the historical importance of these communities for the development of the NYC club scene. Here we are especially thinking of those who are consistently at the forefront of underground music spaces, such as Black, Brown, transgender, queer, working-class, gay and lesbian communities.
CLUB SPACE
Each week a different artist or group of artists will have access to the 2nd floor space to design and construct their ideal club space in “dialogue” with the historic townhouse interior of the cell, incorporating both visual and musical/sound elements into the installation.
As the cell is a historic townhouse, there are some limitations to consider which restricts our ability to modify walls and compromise sound-treatment. Due to the sensitive nature of the space, Flux Factory will be building some temporary walls that will permit drilling into or adhesive attachment. Beyond these limited additions, it is recommended that artists use freestanding structural installation techniques. Please reach out to pinkflamingo@fluxfactory.org with any questions about buildout logistics.
Each club space will be documented and archived, with “ephemera” (audio, photos, videos) being added to our archive section for future visitors to grasp the atmosphere of “lost club spaces” from previous weeks.
Additionally, during the buildout of your club space, we hope to occasionally have “open studio” hours where visitors can come see your process as you are creating this space, as well as check out our archives. Our Flux Factory staff and the curators of this show will coordinate with each exhibition to schedule these visits.
A note on accessibility: Unfortunately, the cell is not wheelchair-accessible and visitors must go up a flight of stairs to access the space on the second floor.
EVENTS
The life-cycle of each of the three club environments will culminate in a “Club Night” that incorporates both visual and musical elements. The visual elements could include art installations, live projections, dance performances, or any other form of visual representation. The music elements could consist of DJs, bands, electronic hardware sets, sound experiments, or any other sonic interactions artists imagine would provide a profound collective experience.
We are open to a variety of ideas, as long as the format and performance lineup fits in cohesively with the overarching club installation concept. Also, we welcome public programming of any kind that would enrich the conceptual framework of club space, such as lectures, screenings and workshops.
ARCHIVES
The curators will be developing an archive dedicated to the history of NYC nightclubs featuring archival footage, interview clips, DJ mixes/playlists and old flyer images that will be housed in the gallery’s side room for the duration of the exhibition. This is also where the curators will be archiving each installation’s ephemera and documentation.
EXHIBITION DATES
July 25 – August 21 2022
July 29 – Grand Opening
First exhibition – July 25-August 1 (with event on the July 30th)
Second exhibition – August 2-8 (with event on August 6th)
Third exhibition – August 9-14 (with event on August 13st)
August 14th – Grand Closing
ABOUT THE CURATORS
Jess “PlayPlay” Dilday (NYC) is a DJ, producer, writer, teacher and music scholar. They have been a long-term artist-in-residence at Flux Factory and a teaching artist through NYC’s Building Beats and through the Next Level US Hip Hop diplomacy program in Peru. They have previously taught “The Art and Culture of the DJ” through the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Music. With a particular investment in mentoring those who are not traditionally represented in the music industry, PlayPlay has held DJ workshops at festivals, museums and universities worldwide. As a music scholar, Jess is particulaly interested in local music scenes, queer theory, media studies, nostalgia, dance floor dynamics and creating safer spaces in collective environments. And as a DJ and music producer, their experience as a lifelong music nerd and mainstay at underground clubs for over 20 years is constantly informing their encyclopedic sets, weaving together new underground club tracks with the classics.
Anton Lapov (Ukraine/USA) is an artist, musician, independent curator and museologist. His practice follows a multidisciplinary approach based on his interest in new media, sound-art, creative coding, digital humanities and experimental museology. He is constantly in search of non-conventional forms of exhibitional representation and seeks to avoid the logic of instrumentalisation through the creation of procedural communicative situations. In addition to being involved in the sphere of artistic/curatorial production he also conducts research into the history of sound-art/electronic music and local artistic communities of Eastern Ukraine.