Contents for May 26th, 2026
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Arleen Schloss, FF Alumn, In Memoriam
Weekly Spotlight: **VOICES from the FIRST FIFTY**
1. Alfredo Jaar, Carlos Martiel, Stephen Shore, Joan Snyder, FF Alumns, receive American Academy of Arts and Letters Awards 2026
2. Xinan Helen Ran, FF Alumn, at Essex Flowers, Manhattan, thru June 21
3. Pamela Sneed, FF Alumn, at Brigitte Mulholland, Paris, France, opening June 12
4. Joseph Keckler, FF Alumn, at TV Eye, Ridgewood, Queens, May 31
5. Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel Atrib, FF Alumn, at Sacred Journeys 13th Global Conference, Université Laval University, Quebec City, Canada, July 7-10
6. Buzz Spector, FF Alumn, at Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles, CA, thru Sept. 6
7. Fiona Templeton, FF Alumn, at Mason Library, Great Barrington, VT, May 30
8. Jill Sigman, FF Alumn, at Pitney Meadows Community Farm, Saratoga Springs, NY, June 6
9. Linda Mary Montano, FF Alumn, now online at Hyperallergic.com
10. Nancy Azara, FF Alumn, at The Richards Gallery at Opus 40, Saugerties, NY thru June 21
11. Jody Oberfelder, FF Alumn, at The Coffee House Club, Manhattan, June 3, and more
12. Susan Newmark, FF Alumn, at Open Source Gallery, Brooklyn, June 5-6
13. Paul Zelevansky, FF Alumn, now online at https://vimeo.com/1194078332
14. Robin Tewes, FF Alumn, at Rise Center, Far Rockaway, NY, June 4
15. Alexander Hahn, FF Alumn, at Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej, Warsaw, Poland, May 30
16. Galinsky, FF Alumn, at Book Club Bar, Brooklyn, May 28
17. WHOOP DEE DOO, FF Alumns, at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY, July 3
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Arleen Schloss, FF Alumn, In Memoriam
To all our dear friends and family: my sister Arleen passed away last week at the age of 82, after being bedridden for many years and she was visited by some of her many, many friends in her last week, as she was in hospice before her passing. She will be receiving a green burial at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, as my sister was always environmentally conscious and always cared a great deal about things she believed in and were close to her heart, which was always a giant part of what made her the special human being that she always was! It is with a heavy heart that we need to inform everyone that knew and loved her of her passing and there will be a celebration of her incredible life sometime in the future. — Paul Schloss, Gisela Schloss-Birkholz, Sarah and Susanna
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Weekly Spotlight: **VOICES from the FIRST FIFTY**
Yura Adams, FF artist alumn
“You fit because you do not fit”
One year after arriving in New York City in the early 1980s, performance artist Yura Adams brought a maximalist one-woman piece — robot puppets, shadow play, narrative, costumes, original music — to Franklin Furnace. The work didn’t fit any category. FF said yes anyway. Forty-three years later, here’s what she remembers about presenting Orbit on the Hour in March 1983:
“My work was maximalist… hard to fit into any category, but Franklin Furnace said ok! You fit because you do not fit. The performance was a raw, one-woman deal, that hinted at theater without the polish of rehearsal. I reveled in the one-night, this moment only presentation, and the fact that I was given total creative freedom to make something that did not then and still doesn’t fit into any category is the strength and great beauty of Franklin Furnace. Thank you for supporting freedom and artists.”
That’s what FF has done for fifty years — said yes to the work no one else knows what to do with, and trusted the artist to make something only they could make. Help us keep saying yes. Any size gift fuels the next “ok”: https://secure.givelively.org/donate/franklin-furnace-archive-inc/first-fifty-campaign
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1. Alfredo Jaar, Carlos Martiel, Stephen Shore, Joan Snyder, FF Alumns, receive American Academy of Arts and Letters Awards 2026
Please visit this link:
https://www.artsandletters.org/news
Thank you.
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2. Xinan Helen Ran, FF Alumn, at Essex Flowers, Manhattan, thru June 21
Xinan Helen Ran | Point and Click
May 22 – June 21
Opening Reception: Friday, May 22, 6-8pm
Essex Flowers presents Point and Click, Xinan’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. Presented in the back space are several material explorations that began with a slow and gradual curiosity about the egg-yolk-like form hidden inside early computer mice.
The work considers an early moment in digital navigation, when friction, weight, and touch were first translated into virtual movement. The trackball was one of the last interfaces where this transformation remained visible and tangible: a neutral toned, rubber-coated steel sphere that could be removed, held, cleaned, and played with during Computer Science. Rolling freely within a confined structure engineered precisely for its size, the sphere converts physical motion across a surface into movements across a screen.
Between a machine component and a “vital organ”, the mouse ball resembles an eyeball or joint socket, collecting skin oil, scribbles, dust and crumbs; requiring maintenance and repair. The hover and the click emerge as extensions of the hand and pointer finger; the cursor becomes a ghost-hand operating within a space made of light and symbols.
As systems become increasingly seamless, the disembodied trackballs- many collected online as “transitional fossils”- resurface here as uncanny still life: weighted spheres that once translate movement into data, gesture into abstraction, and the hand into signal. Through tactile repetition: collecting, enlarging, and quilting bitmap forms of these pointers into physical objects, the artist invites both herself and you, who is reading at this moment, to feel again: to touch, weigh, squint, roll and squeeze something that no longer serves a function.
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3. Pamela Sneed, FF Alumn, at Brigitte Mulholland, Paris, France, opening June 12
Brigitte Mulholland
81 rue de Turenne
Paris 75003
opening June 12, 6-8 pm
https://www.brigittemulholland.com
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4. Joseph Keckler, FF Alumn, at TV Eye, Ridgewood, Queens, May 31
Joseph Keckler and band, and special guests, at TV EYE, Ridgewood, Queens, May 31, does open at 6:30, show starts at 7.
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5. Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel Atrib, FF Alumn, at Sacred Journeys 13th Global Conference, Université Laval University, Quebec City, Canada, July 7-10
Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel Atrib at Sacred Journeys 13th Global Conference, Université Laval University, Quebec City, Canada, July 7-10, 2026
https://www.sacredjourneysnetwork.org/home
“Hundreds of millions of people embark annually on pilgrimages with numbers steadily increasing. Pilgrimage is one of the most ancient practices of humankind and is associated with a great variety of religious and spiritual traditions, beliefs and sacred geographies. As a global phenomenon, pilgrimage facilitates interaction between diverse peoples from countless cultures, occupations, and walks of life. In the 13” Global Conference, we will explore pilgrimage’s personal, interpersonal, intercultural, and interconfessional dimensions. This includes similarities and differences in the practice in Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Taoism, and other traditions, as well as secular pilgrimage. The impact of the internet and globalization, pilgrimage as protest, and pilgrimage and peace building, among others, are all topics of interest, as are the concepts of the internal pilgrimage and the journey of self-discovery.
Other topics include: (1) pilgrimage and the marketplace (2) the metaphor of the journey as explored by writers, artists, performers, and singers, including humanists and agnostics (3) pilgrimage and ‘miracles’ and the related topic of thanksgiving, and (4) ‘dark’ pilgrimages (5) the use and misuse of the term pilgrimage. Also of interest are pilgrimage and decolonization, pilgrimage and nationalism/militarism, Indigenous pilgrimage, and pilgrimage towards healing and reconciliation.”
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6. Buzz Spector, FF Alumn, at Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles, CA, thru Sept. 6
Please visit this link
Thank you.
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7. Fiona Templeton, FF Alumn, at Mason Library, Great Barrington, VT, May 30
Not sure where anyone is these days or who comes and goes, but if you’re north of the city it would be good to see you at my reading in Great Barrington.
4pm Saturday May 30
Mason Library, 231 Main St
Great Barrington, Vermont
OTHERWORDS Reading Series
Free
Best
Fiona
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8. Jill Sigman, FF Alumn, at Pitney Meadows Community Farm, Saratoga Springs, NY, June 6
Greetings! You haven’t heard from me for a while because I have been developing Go Between, both in NYC and abroad in the Netherlands and Poland! And I am about to head to Pitney Meadows Community Farm in Saratoga Springs, NY for a residency and performance on June 6, 4-6pm with support from Improv Spaces, Saratoga Arts, Global Performance & Sound Lab, and Rutgers-Newark. More info on the exhibition, performance, and collaborators soon!
Go Between is an eco-performative practice in which I dance with soils significant to climate change, colonial histories, and personal narratives. This process leaves physical marks on large scale papers, creating soil scrolls that are at once documentation of my movement dialogue as well as storytelling about colonial legacy, environmental justice, ecological degradation, food security, place, and culture. At Pitney Meadows, I will create a new series of scrolls with soil from the farm.
Go Between has been developing in three ways– through performance, studio research, and Soil as Story workshops.
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9. Linda Mary Montano, FF Alumn, now online at Hyperallergic.com
Please visit this link:
https://hyperallergic.com/the-divine-powers-of-chicken-linda/?ref=weekly-newsletter
Thank you.
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10. Nancy Azara, FF Alumn, at The Richards Gallery at Opus 40, Saugerties, NY thru June 21
NANCY AZARA + DARLA BJORK | A Shared Legacy
The Richards Gallery at Opus 40
May 15 – June 21, 2026
The Richards Gallery at Opus 40
356 George Sickle Road
Saugerties, NY 12477
845-246-3400
Gallery Hours:
May | Friday – Monday: 10:00 – 5:00 PM
(Saugerties, NY) – Nancy Azara + Darla Bjork| A Shared Legacy is an exhibition featuring the sculptures, paintings, and prints of the late feminist artist Nancy Azara (1939-2024), and encaustic paintings by her widow, Darla Bjork. Although their artworks were inspired by different sources (Azara explored matriarchal archetypes and connection to nature, while Björk mines the psyche), both artists are neo-expressionists and emphasize the power of the gesture in their mark-making. Together for over 40 years, Nancy Azara and Darla Bjork were a couple during a transitional time in American history, from a barely tolerated union in the 80s through an official recognition of their relationship in 2011, when gay marriage finally became legal in New York State. The artists were both part of the New York Feminist Art Institute, an organization that grew out of the 1970s feminist movement and offered art and writing classes taught by women for women.
Nancy Azara + Darla Bjork runs through Sunday 14 June, 2026.
About Nancy Azara: Nancy Azara was an artist and feminist educator best known for her large-scale wood sculptures and mixed media collages. Nancy developed a distinct style of sculpture – found wood, carved, ornamented, and mounted. Instinctive chip carving peels off an outer layer of wood, reaching for an essentialized raw experience of the body, of the limbs, exposing flesh and blood. This work explored life cycles, utilizing the metaphor of a tree for personhood. Egg tempera, often in reds and pinks, and aluminum, palladium, and metal leaf gilding recover these exposed layers, exploring folkloric stories of women’s roles, goddess imagery, ancient symbols, mystic spiritual traditions, and affirmation of female self.
About Darla Bjork: Darla Bjork is an artist who, early on, channeled her creative energy into her career as a psychiatrist in NYC. While her lines and forms often appear simple, there are always formative structures and elements beneath. The layering and depth seem to reflect insights drawn from Darla’s years working in psychiatry. She is an artist whose paintings often exemplify the hidden layers of living a human life.
Darla has had solo exhibits in the United States and Europe. Originally a founding member of Ceres Gallery, a women-run, non-profit collective gallery in downtown Manhattan, she joined SOHO20 Gallery, a women’s collective gallery founded in 1973, where she continues to be a member. Bjork co-authored an essay with Nancy Azara, published in Entering the Picture:Judy Chicago, The Fresno Feminist Art Program, and the Collective Visions of Women Artists, edited by Jill Fields, Routledge, 09/14/2011.
This exhibition at The Richards Gallery at Opus 40 will travel to Venice, Italy, for an affiliated show at Castello 925 during the 61st Venice Biennale.
About OPUS 40:
Created over four decades by visionary artist and Bard professor Harvey Fite, Opus 40 is a 6.5-acre earthwork made of finely fitted bluestone, rising out of an abandoned quarry at the foot of Overlook Mountain in Saugerties, NY. In 1978, Fite’s widow, Barbara, established the nonprofit Opus 40 Inc, opening the sculpture, along with 63 acres of meadows, walking trails, bluestone quarries, as well as the Quarryman’s Museum to visitors from all over the world. Today, Opus 40 offers a diverse selection of events in a wholly unique setting that Architectural Digest has called “one of the most beguiling works of art on the entire continent.”
Opus 40
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Copyright (C) 2026 Nancy Azara. All rights reserved.
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11. Jody Oberfelder, FF Alumn, at The Coffee House Club, Manhattan, June 3, and more
We’re planting seeds for a new work: Living Room. June 3rd showing 10 minutes of brand new material, part a lively program celebrating Arts and Culture magazine This Week In New York https://twiny.substack.com/p/save-the-date-twi-ny-at-twenty-five?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share
Also on the program is theater director, Sara Farrington; she has a podcast called “Theater is Hard” and will do a reading, and a brilliant pianist, Harriet Stubbs.
Wednesday, June 3rd
6:30-7:30
The Coffee House Club
3 West 51st St.
Other news:
Our film Story Time is screening internationally, most recently at Music Dance Festival Consonance, Mannheim Arts and Film Festival, The Kyoto Independent Film Festival, LIMINAL Dance Film Festival, and the Charlotte International Dance Film Festival.
Upcoming:
August 5-9 Taunus Filmfest | TAUNALE Germany
September 3rd Performance Tribute to Janet Panetta (group show) Arts on Site
September 19th Detroit Institute of Arts: Dance City Festival Performance of Life Traveler and film screening
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12. Susan Newmark, FF Alumn, at Open Source Gallery, Brooklyn, June 5-6
Please visit me in my U-Haul Open Air Truck Gallery, as part of the Spring Open Studios of the Park Slope/Windsor Terrace Artists.
Dates: June 5th and 6th, 2026, from 12pm to 6pm
Location: In front of Open Source Gallery 306 17th St at 6th Avenue
Maps of the entire event will be available in the U-Haul.
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13. Paul Zelevansky, FF Alumn, now online at https://vimeo.com/1194078332
“THE SMALL VICTORIES
ARE THE BIG ONES”
PZ, May 21, 2026
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14. Robin Tewes, FF Alumn, at Rise Center, Far Rockaway, NY, June 4
Artist Talking About Their Work
Moderated by Andrea Belag
Painters: Julian Kreimer, Mark Sheinkman, Robin Tewes
June 4th, 2026, 4-6PM
RIse Center
58-03 Rockaway Beach Blvd
Far Rockaway, N.Y. 11692
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15. Alexander Hahn, FF Alumn, at Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej, Warsaw, Poland, May 30
I would like to share the news that on Saturday, May 30, at 6 pm, KINOMUZEUM / Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej in Warsaw will present a screening of my work.
The program, Alexander Hahn – Selected Video Works, brings together selected single-channel videos from the 1980s to the present and will be followed by a conversation.
With thanks and warm regards,
Alexander
IG: lxhahn1
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16. Galinsky, FF Alumn, at Book Club Bar, Brooklyn, May 28
Galinsky, FF Alumn, Poetry in Brooklyn! At the new Book Club Bar, May 28
10 curated poets will christen the new addition to Brooklyn’s literary scene with Galinsky at the helm.
This month includes: Tai Allen, Daniel Gallant, LBR, Stevie Latham, Anna Carlson, Nixiwei Flores, Daria Meyer, Gina Bonati and live painting Dig Ferreira, and Ian McFarland live music!
Free Event – More info: https://pinymay28.eventbrite.com/
Book Club Bar
380 Troutman Street
Brooklyn, NY 11237
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17. WHOOP DEE DOO, FF Alumns, at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY, July 3
SAVE THE DATE: JULY 3
WHOOP DEE DOO Presents: a filmed live variety show at
STORM KING ART CENTER
Come Be on TV!!
We’re performing two free shows on July 3rd:
Show 1: 3:30 PM
Show 2: 6:30 PM
Storm King Art Center, 1 Museum Rd, New Windsor, NY 12553
Save the date and COME BE ON TV!!!
Huge thanks to Storm King Art Center and the Newburgh Free Library for making this possible.
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Goings On is compiled weekly by Rohan Subramaniam, Archive Intern
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