Primary Information and Franklin Furnace Archive are pleased to offer the digital publication of all sixteen issues of The Flue as free pdfs on our respective websites. 

The Flue was a periodical published between 1980 and 1989 by the venerable institution Franklin Furnace Archive, which was founded in 1976 by the artist Martha Wilson to present, preserve, interpret, proselytize, and advocate on behalf of avant-garde art, especially forms that may be vulnerable due to institutional neglect, cultural bias, their ephemeral nature, or politically unpopular content. The periodical took on a multitude of media forms and functions, from organizational newsletters to exhibition supplements and catalogs, to scholarly surveys of contemporary and historical artists’ book movements. This shapeshifting approach was supported by a changing cast of editors and designers that included Barbara Kruger, Richard McGuire, Linda Montano, and Buzz Spector. The Flue also featured artist projects and writings by Anna Banana, Dawoud Bey, Ulises Carrión, Paula Court, Agnes Denes, Peter Frank, Ken Friedman, Gilbert & George, David Hammons, Ray Johnson, Leon Golub, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Anna Mendieta, Richard Nonas, Nam June Paik, and Nancy Spero, among many others. Thematic issues included Multiples by Latin American Artists; Artists’ Books, Archives, and Collections; Cubist Prints / Cubist Books; Sex, Performance, and the 80s; and Mail Art: Then and Now, all of which are accompanied by scholarly texts, checklists, and exhibition documentation. No less ambitious are the artist resources, performance and exhibition documentation, book reviews, and event calendars that provide a keen snapshot of New York in the 1980s, a decade that the Franklin Furnace Archive helped shaped and nurture.