Interested in being one of our 2023-2024 Franklin Furnace FUND for Performance Art Recipients? For this info session, we were joined by multidisciplinary artists, Franklin FUND Recipients, and panelists Billy X. Curmano and Verónica Peña. The panelists gave details about how to apply for a Franklin Furnace FUND grant, provided helpful tips on grant-writing and answered questions regarding different sections of our guidelines.
Video documentation of the Wednesday, February 22, 2023, 7:00pm-8pm ET event of 2023-24 Franklin Furnace FUND for Performance Art Application Information Session. Recorded on Zoom, edited by Xinan Ran
About the Panelists
Billy X. Curmano
Billy X. Curmano is an award winning independent artist and former McKnight Foundation Fellow that fuses the performative with more traditional objects. His work has been exhibited and collected extensively from the “III Vienna Graphikbiennale” to New York’s Museum of Modern Art Library and the Malta National Collection. A 2,367.4-mile Mississippi River Swim from its source to the Gulf of Mexico, 3 days buried alive, a 40-day desert fast and sojourn to the Arctic Circle are among his more eccentric environmental performances.
Amused journalists have dubbed him, “The Court Jester of Southeastern Minnesota” with comparisons to P.T. Barnum, Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp and even…a happy otter.
Verónica Peña
VERÓNICA PEÑA (US/Spain) is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and international-community advocate. Her work explores absence, separation, and the search for harmony through Performance Art. Her performance installations combine underwater submersion, visual metamorphosis, and participation to address global issues of migration, cross-cultural dialogue, peaceful resistance, empathy, and women’s empowerment. Recent works include participatory performances that generate shared moments amongst strangers. Peña performs/exhibits primarily in Europe and America. In America: Museo Ex Teresa (ZonaMACO, Mexico City, 2022), SatelliteArt Fair (Miami Art Week, 2021), ChaShaMa (NYC, 2021), Grace Exhibition Space (NYC, 2021), Franklin Furnace (NYC, 2021), NARS Foundation (Artist-In-Residence, 2021), Coaxial Arts Foundation (LA, 2021), Pioneer Works (2020-canceled due to Covid-19), Smack MellonFoundation, Triskelion Arts, Hemispheric Institute, Queens Museum, SAIC (Visiting Artist), Times Square, Armory Show, Defibrillator Performance Gallery, Momenta Art Gallery, Dumbo Arts Festival, Consulate of Spain in NY, among others. Europe: Fundación Bilbaoarte (2021), Museo La NeomudéJar (Madrid, 2019), Friche La Belle De Mai (Marseille, 2018), Festival Intramurs (Valencia, 2018), Zaratan Arte Contemporáneo (Lisbon, 2017), among others. She was selected for the Creative Capital NYC Taller 19-20, and received a Franklin Furnace Fund 17-18. She published “The Presence Of The Absent”, was reviewed by Donald Kuspit, and on Hyperallergic. She leads Performance Art Open Call, a +22,000 members FB Community. Peña received an MFA from Stony Brook University. veronicapena.com @veronica.pena.live.art
Franklin Furnace Fund 2023-24 Information Session is presented with the support of; The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; SHS Foundation; The Jerome Foundation; The New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; The Silicon Valley Community Foundation; and the Board of Directors, members, and friends of Franklin Furnace Archive.
