Working Alternatives: Breaking Bread, Art Broadcasting, and Collective Action October 27, 2012 – January 13, 2013
For Working Alternatives, curators Mackenzie Schneider, Terri C Smith, and Jess Wilcox explore three threads of alternative art platforms and production: conviviality and food as components in alternative art space programming and mission (Wilcox); artists using media such as radio, television, and newspapers as alternative venues for presenting work (Schneider); and artist collectives presented in a living archive with weekly changing exhibitions using archive materials (Smith). In addition to historical examples, the exhibition also includes original artworks by contemporary artists that reflect and expand on the show’s themes. Working Alternatives’ artists include: Paul Branca, Jaime Davidovich, ESP TV, Group Material, Ann Hirsch, Alison Knowles, Tom Marioni, Anna Ostoya, Legacy Russell, Chris Sollars and Jerome Waag. Artist collectives involved will continue to expand during the exhibition and currently
include: Conflict Kitchen, Fierce Pussy, Howling Mob Society, JustSeeds, M12 Studios, Paper Tiger, Philly Stake, The Pinky Show, Second Front, SubRosa, Temporary Services, and W.A.G.E. Franklin Street Works is also excited to collaborate on several off-site artworks, including the live radio broadcast of an Ann Hirsch performance on WPKN, Bridgeport, and collages by Anna Ostoya in the Stamford Advocate via three ads during the show’s run.
Your Content Will Return Shortly
January 24 – March 24, 2013 Free, public reception, Thursday, January 24, 5:00 – 8:00 pm
Virtually since television’s invention, artists have used its form, content, and media (especially video) to create a myriad of artworks whose intentions range from homage to critique. Your Content Will Return Shortly (working title) will explore how contemporary artists harness the in-between moments of our television experiences by taking their cues from devices such as advertising, laugh tracks, test signals, and static. Look to our website for more on this exhibition in the coming months.
Strange Invitation
April 4 – June 16, 2013 Opening reception date TBA
With Strange Invitation Franklin Street Works continues to explore the blurring of boundaries between participation and creation. The exhibition begins with a string of invitations aimed at bringing together three, collaborative teams who will create engaging installations and events. Participants who have been asked to produce original projects for Strange Invitation are: Andrew Beccone who formed the “Reanimation Library” in Brooklyn, NY; artist, activist and community organizer Andrea Reynosa (Narrowsburg, NY); and sub/urban writer/critic Stephen Zacks who is also the artistic director of the Flint Public Art Project in Flint, Michigan. Each one of these collaborators will invite artists, curators, and/or civic activists to join them. The structure of Strange Invitation brings multiple and variously informed viewpoints to the exhibition all steeped in an understanding of how contemporary art can interface with grass roots, community-oriented projects. In addition to their knowledge of contemporary art, Franklin Street Works’ collaborators inform the show via their knowledge of urban planning, library science, and environmental activism, making this exhibition one that connects contemporary art with themes surrounding the natural, urban, and organizational environments in our daily lives.
Strange Invitation
Apr 6 - Jun 16, 2013
A collaborative, socially engaged exhibition explores themes surrounding the natural, urban, and organizational environments.
As We Perform It
Jun 22 - Jul 7, 2013 Reception: Sat Jun 22 5pm - 8pm
As We Perform It is a group exhibition exploring contemporary approaches to expressing identity
As We Perform It is a two-week, group exhibition at Franklin Street Works that brings together emerging and mid-career artists who use performance, painting, video, photography, and social practice to expand on the rich, ever-evolving role of contemporary art as a tool for exploring self-representation. This exhibition is the first by emerging curator and Franklin Street Works’ staff member Sandrine Milet. It is on view from June 22 - July 7, 2013, with a free, public reception on Saturday, June 22, from 5:00 - 8:00 pm. Exhibiting artists include Lisa Fagan, Christina Sukhgian Houle, Kristin Lucas, Erica Magrey, Peter Bonde Becker Nelson, Dani Padgett, Bastienne Schmidt, Devan Shimoyama, and Thuan Vu.
For many decades, especially during the “identity politics” era of the 1980s and 1990s, artists have investigated the self in relation to society, oftentimes reclaiming their identity or critiquing related politics and stereotypes. Yet how are current approaches of expressing identity affected by new modes of communication? “Today, there are so many platforms to express and communicate ourselves,” explains Sandrine Milet, “that it becomes a constant search and desire to define ourselves to others. This need and the accompanying confusion many of my peers talk about peaked my interest in how artists deal with these issues.”
These themes in As We Perform It are expressed in a variety of ways. Artists such as Peter Bonde Becker Nelson, Bastienne Schmidt and Devan Shimoyama create narratives that blend autobiography with the imagined, while also investigating the self’s ability to change and transform. Lisa Fagan, Christina Sukhgian Houle, Erica Magrey and Dani Padgett focus on the body and mind in relation to our physical and social environments, oftentimes foregrounding performance. Paying close attention to the political environment of the 21st century and its impact on identity, Kristin Lucas and Thuan Vu draw connections between their personal identities and the larger construct of the hyper-mediated world, bringing an understanding of the new and existing shared platforms.
As We Perform It features works made by artists who spent their formative years in the 21st century’s hyper-connected world where physical and digital lives collide. Focusing on the “multi-place-ness and multi-space-ness” of our society, as described by exhibiting artist Erica Magrey, the show, among other things, asks how the prevalence of expressing identity through immediate visual cues has affected contemporary art practices. Many of the works in As We Perform It map out experiences or narratives through performative self-representations in an attempt to answer the “where and how am I” inquiry, propagated by our sharing-obsessed society.