Contents for March 16th, 2026
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Steven Durland, FF Alumn, In Memoriam
Weekly Spotlight: Franklin Furnace’s 50th Birthday JUBILEE, Friday, Apr 10, 2026 at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)
1. Chris DAZE Ellis, FF Alumn, at PPOW Gallery, Manhattan, opening Mar. 20
2. John Kelly, FF Alumn, now online at NYTimes.com
3. Morgan O’Hara, FF Alumn, in Juliet magazine
4. Marina Abramović, FF Alumn, at Cistemerne, Frediksberg, Denmark, thru Nov. 30
5. Sheryl Oring, FF Alumn, at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, thru July 27
6. Symin Adive, FF Alumn, now online at https://youtu.be/VaHa89OtMIc
7. Galinsky, FF Alumn, at Tompkins Square Library, Manhattan, Mar. 19
8. Grace Roselli, FF Alumn, open studio, Brooklyn, March 29
9. Peculiar Works Project, FF Alumn, at La MaMa
10. Art at a Time Like This, Pablo Helguera, Shaun Leonardo, FF Alumns, at Cristin Tierney Gallery, Manhattan, Mar. 27
11. Alanna Heiss, Steven Watson, FF Alumns, now online at https://artifacts.movie/alanna-heiss/
12. Cyrilla Mozenter, FF Member, now online at Spotify.com and more
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Steven Durland, FF Alumn, In Memoriam
Steve Durland died at 10:45 am, March 11, 2026, in Moses Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro, NC. I held his hand as he died. He was a wonderful human being. I am so happy he got to enjoy some kudos at the Kickoff of the 2-year celebration of High Performance at the Performance Art Museum in Los Angeles, CA. He really appreciated it, for sure. Thanks to all who joined us.
It is empty at Frog Pond Farm.
Linda Frye Burnham
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Weekly Spotlight: Franklin Furnace’s 50th Birthday JUBILEE, Friday, Apr 10, 2026 at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)
Join us for a once-in-50-years celebration honoring Franklin Furnace’s Golden Anniversary.
Hosted by Brooklyn Academy of Music, this special evening brings together avant-garde artists, curators, collectors, aficionados from every decade of Franklin Furnace’s history. Friends old and new are invited to an unforgettable night of art, music, conversation, and dancing.
The evening begins with walkthroughs of the commemorative exhibition curated by Patrick Pardo & Raul Zamudio, “Standing Slightly Outside: Franklin Furnace 1976—2026,” followed by a giant dance party with free drinks, light snacks, and music by DJ Gerb.
Schedule
6:30–6:55 PM Curators’ walk-through @ BAM Opera House, Devitre Lounge (30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn)
7:00-7:25 PM, Curator’s walk-through @ BAM Strong, Rudin Gallery (651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn)
7:30–10:30 PM, Dance Party @ BAM Strong 651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn
Colorful attire – Dress fabulous
Save your spot! Free with RSVP
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1. Chris DAZE Ellis, FF Alumn, at PPOW Gallery, Manhattan, opening Mar. 20
Chris “Daze” Ellis
Orchid Rain on the Underground
March 20 – April 25, 2026
Opening Reception, Friday, March 20, 6 – 8pm
390 Broadway, 2nd Floor
P·P·O·W is pleased to present Orchid Rain on the Underground, Chris “Daze” Ellis’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. Featuring a new series of paintings, multimedia installation, and a site-specific mural, the exhibition harnesses the passion and spontaneity of the graffiti movement of the 1970s and 80s while demonstrating a thoughtful and meticulous practice honed over the past five decades. While the version of New York City that fostered Daze’s beginnings as a fine artist may feel like a bygone era, the works in this exhibition are evidence of its enduring legacy. By revitalizing that foundational energy for the present moment, Daze affirms the continued relevance of those figures and places, and their profound influence on the creative spirit that persists throughout the city today.
Born in Brooklyn in 1962, Daze became inspired by early graffiti writers like Blade, Lee Quiñones, and PHASE 2 while attending High School of Art and Design in the mid 1970s. As he began to establish his own name as an artist, he was also a frequent visitor to what would become historic landmarks of the city’s nightlife, including the Lit Lounge in the East Village, Danceteria on West 21st Street, and the Mudd Club in Tribeca. These nightclubs, which often doubled as art galleries and performance venues, functioned as generative sites of social and artistic experimentation and part of the driving force behind Daze’s early works. By the early 1980s, he had begun transitioning from tagging subway cars to developing a studio practice that encapsulates the ethos of the city.
Inspired by early 20th-century urban realist artists, including John Sloan of the Ashcan School and Reginald Marsh of the WPA era, Daze’s works honor New York City’s streets and subways as important sites of his creative evolution. Simultaneously influenced by the lyrical abstraction of works by Joan Mitchell and Willem De Kooning, Daze combines gestural swaths of acrylic and spray paint with detailed renderings of train car interiors, tunnels, and stations. In Gem Spa In the 80s, 2025, Daze depicts the now iconic newspaper stand and candy store that once operated on the corner of St. Mark’s Place and Second Avenue. Gem Spa was a central destination and meeting place for members of the city’s subcultures and is referenced by literary figures like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg (who called it a “nerve center” of the city). Important people from Daze’s life can be found throughout the composition, among them critic and curator Carlo McCormick as well as artist Martin Wong, who both emerge amongst the crowd in the painting’s foreground. In other works, technicolor throngs of flowers ascend from heaps of urban rubble, representing optimism amidst inequality and the beauty that can arise out of destruction. Throughout the exhibition, these varied combinations of tropical flora and local flowers from the artist’s home in upstate New York function as poignant memorials to what has been lost and hopeful testaments to the beauty and creativity that can still be found around every corner.
The exhibition will also include a site-specific mural, bringing an aspect of Daze’s practice often relegated to the outdoors into the interior setting of the gallery. Covering the walls of a hallway, the mural gives way to the final room of the gallery, featuring a multimedia installation that transports viewers into a composite scene from the artist’s youth. Combining a light-up dance floor and disco ball, actual subway car seats, and a curated track fusing house, disco, hip-hop, and club music, the installation emphasizes the freedom and creative inspiration that arose from these settings, and their importance to Daze’s personal and artistic development. Combining elements from throughout his career, Orchid Rain on the Underground showcases Daze’s never-ending exploration of daily life in New York City while paying homage to the people and places that comprise its vibrant cultural heartbeat.
Chris “Daze” Ellis (b. 1962) has presented numerous solo exhibitions at Fashion Moda, Bronx, NY; Palais Liechtenstein, Feldkirch, Austria; Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, Nice, France; Galleria del Palazzo, Florence, Italy; Fortune Cookie Projects, Singapore; Museum of the City of New York, NY; and P·P·O·W, New York, NY; among others. His work has been included in major group exhibitions at MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; Semaphore EAST, New York, NY; Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY; Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; New Museum, New York, NY; Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong; and the Drawing Center, New York, NY; among others. His works belong to the permanent collections of the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Groninger Museum, Groningen, The Netherlands; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Museum of the City of New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; among others. In 2025, Daze was commissioned by the Museum of the City of New York and the Olayan Group to create Above Ground Midtown: MCNY x DAZE, a large-scale mural project at 550 Madison Avenue.
For all press inquiries, please contact Alejandro Jassan Studio at ale@alejassan.com
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2. John Kelly, FF Alumn, now online at NYTimes.com
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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3. Morgan O’Hara, FF Alumn, in Juliet magazine
Please visit this link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UlW1qR3r2XNph3cxP__3FPLJKCw90372/view?usp=sharing
Thank you.
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4. Marina Abramović, FF Alumn, at Cistemerne, Frediksberg, Denmark, thru Nov. 30
Marina Abramović
Seven Deaths
Cisternerne, Frederiksbergmuseerne, Frederiksberg, Denmark
March 14 – November 30, 2026
Sean Kelly is delighted to announce the opening of Marina Abramović’s Seven Deaths, an installation in the acoustically rich subterranean chambers of the Cisternerne at Frederiksbergmuseerne. The exhibition presents an immersive film where Abramović stages death through the lens of seven of the most iconic female roles in opera history.
Set to seven arias sung by the legendary opera singer Maria Callas, Seven Deaths unfolds as a visually dynamic imagined filmic universe. Abramović herself assumes the female lead, appearing opposite Hollywood actor Willem Dafoe. The result is a mesmerizing and deeply transcendent narrative of love and loss, life and death, longing and suffering. Seven Deaths is a raw and powerful exploration of the fundamental conditions of human existence: identity, destiny, and the great universal emotions that bind them.
“The only thing that is very important at the end is that yes, Callas can die, her body can be dematerialised, but the voice stays forever,” says Abramović. “So, it’s what you’ve left that stays, not your physical body – that’s very important. She will stay with us forever.”
For additional information on Seven Deaths, please visit frederiksbergmuseerne.dk
For additional information on Marina Abramović, please visit skny.com
For all other inquiries, please email Lauren Kelly at Lauren@skny.com
For media inquiries, please email Adair Lentini at Adair@skny.com
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5. Sheryl Oring, FF Alumn, at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, thru July 27
I am thrilled to be part of the “America 250: Common Threads” exhibition at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The show considers how artists and national leaders document American history and how artists foster civic participation and strengthen community relationships.
Thanks to Larissa Randall and Cynthia Post Hunt for including my artwork as well as live performances in the show.
I performed “Spirit of Independence” this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday March 13-15 at Crystal Bridges and will be back for more typing this summer. With this work, created to mark the semiquincentennial, I ask people: “What does independence mean to you?” The answers I have typed so far have been deeply moving. Thanks to @amymees for making a stunning banner and graphics for this project!
“America 250: Common Threads” remains on view through July 27.
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6. Symin Adive, FF Alumn, now online at https://youtu.be/VaHa89OtMIc
A Semi-Educational, Semi-Fun, Tragi-Comic Film, “How To Make Friends In The Water” is about the mental and environmental blocks that keep us from connecting and thriving “in the water” especially if you weren’t taught to “swim” when young. The absurdist short film, which is inspired by 1940s social educational films from the U.S., follows the journey of Susie as she tries to learn about both the people and the water that surrounds her.
Beyond the playful vintage veneer, this project is at its core about the repercussions of not being properly socialized in a safe, loving environment, the maladaptive coping mechanisms we learn along the way, and the difficulties of having to teach yourself skills as an adult that you were supposed to learn as a child.
Watch for Free https://youtu.be/VaHa89OtMIc
Thank you.
Symin Adive
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7. Galinsky, FF Alumn, at Tompkins Square Library, Manhattan, Mar. 19
After a standing-room-only reading at the Jefferson Market Library last month, I invite you to an encore keynote reading of Could You Patent the Sun?, directed by Cory Michael Herman and inspired by the life and moral courage of Jonas Salk. The show blends humor, grit, and heart to embody Salk not as a biography but as a modern moral mirror for our time.
Honoring Salk’s belief that knowledge, like the polio vaccine, belongs to everyone, admission is FREE & open to the public. Reservations are strongly encouraged and can be made here:
This is the 6th public reading of this new work and will be our first look at adding a video component under the creative guidance of Joshua White of the Joshua Light Show. Special thanks Sohini Paul, Steve Pavlovsky, Marian Sanders and Jeffrey Katz.
Presented at The Tompkins Square Park Library (331 East 10th Street, between Avenue A and Avenue B NYC) this Thursday, March 19th, 6PM.
SEE YOU ON THE 19th!
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8. Grace Roselli, FF Alumn, open studio, Brooklyn, March 29
Hello,
With spring arriving and several new bodies of work underway, I’m opening the studio for an afternoon gathering.
Please stop by to see new paintings, works in progress, and reconnect. There are a few new directions taking shape.
Sunday, March 29
3–7 pm
Open studio + spring gathering
Celebrating the season–and a return to painting
281 N 7th St. Apt.6
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Wine and light refreshments.
Feel free to drop in anytime between 4–7 pm. If you think you might stop by, feel free to reply–it helps me plan.
I’d love to see you,
Grace
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9. Peculiar Works Project, FF Alumn, at La MaMa
OPENS NEXT WEEK!
Discount Tickets for Previews Available
La MaMa in association with Peculiar Works Project presents
Sophocles’ classic… reimagined as a feminist fever dream of Greek storytelling caught in a philosophical nightmare!
Friday, March 20, 8pm
Saturday, March 21, 8pm
Sunday, March 22, 4pm
Monday, March 23, 8pm (Opening Night)
Thursday, March 26, 8pm
Friday, March 27, 8pm
Saturday, March 28, 8pm
Sunday, March 29, 4pm
Thursday, April 2, 8pm
Friday, April 3, 8pm
Saturday, April 4, 8pm
Sunday, April 5, 4pm
Check https://www.peculiarworks.org/antigone_2026.php for more info
and use PARTNER25 code for $25 preview tickets!
Obie and NYIT award-winning Peculiar Works Project returns to La MaMa’’’s Downstairs Theater where the Chorus is reimagined in a metaphysical salon of timeless philosophers who put Jocasta on the throne. Their meddling erupts in a mother-daughter showdown that interrogates patriarchal storytelling through a feminist lens. And there is no battle more fiercely fought than that between a daughter and her mother.
FEATURING:
Bianca Leigh* • Alessandra Lopez
with Simon Henriques • Mick Hilgers* • Freya Højland Høj
Samantha Kochis • Sammy Rivas • Linnea Scott • Nomi Tichman
AND THE CREATIVES
Barbara Barclay: Playwright
Ralph Lewis: Director
Alana Asha Amram: Composer
Rachel Cohen: Choreographer
David Castaneda: Light Designer
Evan Frank: Set/Projection Designer
Grace Martin: Costume Designer
Madison Meyer & Gurkan Yigit: Properties Designers
Harrison Adams: Sound Designer
Meg Dowling*: Stage Manager
Henry Alper: Directing Assistant
Nomi Tichman: Casting Director
David Wechsler: Studio Musician/flute
Yukari Morishima: Studio Musician/piano
Will Rockwell Scott: Studio Musician/drums
John Epperly, Metropolitan Sound: Recording Engineer & Studio
Ruya Tazebay: Community Engagement
Barbara Nitke: Photographer
Carol Davis: Graphic Artist
Stephanie Bok: Audition Actor
Russ Kane: Production Associate
Bianca Ilich: Production Associate
Ralph Lewis, Catherine Porter, & Barry Rowell: Producers
First 10 tickets for each performance only $10.
Come celebrate Women’s History Month with PWP!
*Equity Member appearing with permission of Actors’ Equity Association without benefit of an Equity contract in this Off-Off Broadway production.
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10. Art at a Time Like This, Pablo Helguera, Shaun Leonardo, FF Alumns, at Cristin Tierney Gallery, Manhattan, Mar. 27
Art At A Time Like This is celebrating six years of operation this March. To mark this milestone, we are hosting a benefit in support of our upcoming public art campaign, TAKE ONE ACTION, on March 27 at Cristin Tierney Gallery.
The evening will feature artists in conversation who have previously collaborated with Art At A Time Like This, alongside artists participating in TAKE ONE ACTION. Guests are invited to join us for drinks, bites, and meaningful conversations, culminating in concrete discussions and action items for how to move forward at a time like this.
Join us on March 27, 6–9 PM at Cristin Tierney Gallery for cocktails, conversation, and a call to action.
Speakers:
Janet Biggs
Mary Lucier
Shaun Leonardo
Marka27
Moderated by Pablo Helguera
Hosted by:
Leonardo Bravo
Andy Cushman
Helina Metaferia
Marilyn Minter
Gina Nanni
Megan Noh
Eric Shiner
Cristin Tierney
An evening of community, connection, and a plan of action.
Minimum donation: $150 | $75 for artists
Join us in taking action.
To support Art At A Time Like This and our upcoming public art campaign, visit our website:
https://artatatimelikethis.com/support
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11. Alanna Heiss, Steven Watson, FF Alumns, now online at https://artifacts.movie/alanna-heiss/
Artifacts is honored to present a new interview with
Alanna Heiss
a central figure in the Alternative Space Movement
and the founder of P.S.1 (later MoMA PS1)
whose artistic mission created space for a generation of artists,
repurposing abandoned and underused buildings,
transforming the NYC exhibition landscape forever.
please visit this link: https://artifacts.movie/alanna-heiss/
thank you
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12. Cyrilla Mozenter, FF Member, now online at Spotify.com and more
Please click either link immediately below to hear Brian Alfred’s Sound and Vision Podcast interview with Cyrilla Mozenter, FF Member:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cyrilla-mozenter/id1106453218?i=1000754819470
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2WCcjXgy0z3Hh7vQa4V2Dk
Thank you.
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13. Brooke Singer, FF Alumn, at Francis Kite Club, Manhattan, March 22
Dear friends,
I am excited to share that I’m hosting the next This is Not an Artist Talk! is Sunday March 22 with Robby Herbst and the Anomalies at the Francis Kite Club. Please join us!
This is Not an Artist Talk is a space for artists to share their research and inspirations: an artist talk without the art! Join us on Sunday, March 22, as Robby Herbst weaves stories from the histories of movement, art, counterculture, and tech to consider ideological uses of urban space and manifestations of publicness. Come early or stay late to browse the political poster and wearable collection designed by the Anomalies, a student art collective from SUNY Purchase, while mingling with friends, art lovers, and the curious.
warmly,
Brooke Singer
The Details:
SUNDAY, MARCH 22
at The Francis Kite Club (40 Loisaida Ave, East Village, NYC)
SHOW TIME: 6:00 PM
DOORS OPEN: 5:00 PM
Free with one drink minimum
RSVP to thisisnotanartisttalk@gmail.com
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For subscriptions, un-subscriptions, queries and comments, please email mail@franklinfurnace.org
Join Franklin Furnace today:
https://franklinfurnace.org/membership/
Goings On for Artists is compiled weekly by Rohan Subramaniam, Archive Intern
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