Includes archived events and news
[September 23, 2026 at 8pm] ISSUE presents an evening of performance and conversation in partnership with Franklin Furnace as part of their 50th anniversary commemoration and November release of Back to the Present: 50 Years of Free Expression with Franklin Furnace, edited by founder and pioneering artist, Martha Wilson.
[September 19, 2026] Party in the Park is a day-long performance art festival presented by Franklin Furnace, Materials for the Arts, and Socrates Sculpture Park. Free with RSVP
[August 9, 2026] Join us for a special Congolese lunch and watch party featuring Congolese FUND 2025-26 artist Nada Tshibwabwa.
[April 10, 2026] Join us for a once-in-50-years celebration honoring Franklin Furnace’s Golden Anniversary.
[December 11, 2025. 4:00-7:00pm CST] Inspired by Bettina’s cycles of making, Franklin Furnace is invited to present an activation within the exhibition space on December 11, 2025.
[December 4, 2025] The inaugural Archival Thinking: Artist Archive Symposium was jointly organized by Asian Cultural Council (ACC) and Cai Foundation. It was a full-day event curated by Paul Holdengräber and featured two keynote speeches and three panel discussions.
November 13, 2025, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. ET at Franklin Furnace's new location in LIC. We celebrated this year's 12 grant recipients from three categories: FUND, XENO Prize, and Jacki Apple Award.
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[Oct 2025—April 11, 2026] A retrospective gallery show anticipating its 50th anniversary in 2026. Included in the exhibition are works by Martha Wilson, Jenny Holzer, Tehching Hsieh, Dread Scott, and more.
[July 12 - November 2, 2025] A showcase of artists' books created in the 1970s and collected by the influential Brooklyn organization. The exhibition is guest-curated by Northern New England Museum of Contemporary Art president Mark Waskow.
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[July 4 (Fri) – July 19 (Sat), 2025] Pre-Exhibition for the 50th Anniversary of Franklin Furnace. It introduces the groundbreaking activities of Franklin Furnace―still relatively little known in Japan. It focuses on avant-garde and time-based art forms such as artists’ books and performance art, and highlights FF’s global efforts to support emerging artists and archive their ephemeral works.