Welcome to Franklin Furnace
Franklin Furnace’s mission is to present, preserve, interpret, educate, and advocate on behalf of avant-garde art, especially forms that may be vulnerable due to institutional neglect, cultural bias, ephemerality, or politically unpopular content.
The organization provides physical and virtual venues for the presentation of time-based art, including artists’ books and periodicals, performance art, installation art, and unforeseen contemporary avant-garde artforms; and undertakes other activities related to these purposes.
Franklin Furnace is dedicated to serving early-career artists, cultivating appreciation of avant-garde art for all, and fostering artists’ zeal to circulate ideas.
Ongoing Events
Subscribe to our Goings On e-newsletter for the latest information on the local, national, and international activities of Franklin Furnace artists/alumni and members.
Goings On | 03/24/2025
Contents for March 24th, 2025 CONTENTS (please click on the links or scroll down for complete information on each post): ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ L. Scott Helmes, FF Alumn, In Memoriam 1. Democracy
Return to Valhalla, video with the artist
[April 22, 2025, 6-7pm EST] Through salvaged artworks, travel videos, and recuperative actions, Return to Valhalla is an essay film that traces the scale of the personal against that of the epic. It has a particular sense of lost time, and of blurred boundaries between realities lived, imagined, and hypothesized. An obsession is lived out in pursuit of the elements of a 30 year old trauma: can what seems fated be rewritten through some digging in history, or language, or location?
Hidden in the Stacks: Digitizing the Franklin Furnace Archive Artists’ Books Vertical Files – Panel Discussion
[March 31, 2025, 5-6pm EST] a Closing hybrid event for the exhibition “Hidden in the Stacks: Digitizing Franklin Furnace Archive Artists’ Books Collection,” at Pratt Institute Library
Past LOFT events
2025-26 Franklin Furnace FUND for Performance Art Application Information Session
February 26, 2025, 7-8pm EST – Learn what constitutes a well-prepared grant application and ask questions about Franklin Furnace Fund
Koloto Siraji: NABBUZANA, the melting Moon
[December 14, 10–11 a.m. ET] This live performance will take place in Jinja, Uganda and will be broadcast live via
Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc. gratefully acknowledges the government agencies, foundations, corporations and individuals whose support makes our programs possible:
Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc. programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Franklin Furnace has received support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Arison Arts Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, Marian Goodman Foundation, Teiger Foundation, and the Willem de Kooning Foundation through Coalition of Small Arts New York City (CoSA NYC).