Franklin Furnace, the ever-experimental advocate of avant-garde artists and their challenging work, turns 50 at 12 noon on April 3, 2026. To celebrate the New York-based arts organization’s first fifty years of supporting emerging artists, Franklin Furnace will be presenting 18 months of programs and special events that embrace its past, showcase the present, and pave the way into the future of visionary time-based art and freedom of expression.
New 50th Anniversary graphics created by Georgianna Stout of 2×4 www.2×4.org
Franklin Furnace looks to secure its future by illuminating its achievements in advancing its mission to advocate, present, preserve, interpret, and educate on behalf of avant-garde art, especially forms that may be vulnerable due to institutional neglect, cultural bias, ephemerality, or politically unpopular content. The organization provides both physical and virtual venues for the presentation of time-based art, including artists’ books and periodicals, performance art, installation art, and unforeseen contemporary avant-garde artforms; and undertakes other activities related to advancing these works and artists. Franklin Furnace is dedicated to serving early-career artists, cultivating appreciation of avant-garde art for all, and fostering artists’ zeal to circulate ideas.
Worldwide Anniversary Programming Includes Presentations at Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Gallery 360° Tokyo, Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, and Founding Director Emerita Martha Wilson’s forthcoming Princeton Architectural Press book “Back to the Present”.
Chin Chih Yang’s “Watch Us! Together We Can Do It” selected for the Milano–Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics Cultural Program
[ February 6, 2026] This landmark work will be presented atop the historic Campo Imperatore in Abruzzo, Italy, in conjunction with the Olympic Opening Ceremonies.
Lettrism in America – An Avant-Garde’s Journey Overseas
[January 27, 2026. 6:00pm EST] A public lecture on the history of the American reception and impact of one of the most radical Parisian late avant-gardes: the Lettrist movement.
Program Support for Archival Thinking: Artist Archive Symposium at MoMA PS1
[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.
Standing Slightly Outside: Franklin Furnace 1976—2026 | Brooklyn Academy of Music | Brooklyn, NY
[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.
Founded on Artists’ Books: Brattleboro Museum & Art Center | Vermont, USA
[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.
FF Rising: Gallery 360 | Tokyo, Japan
[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’
Franklin Furnace was founded in 1976 to serve artists who chose publishing as a primary, “democratic” artistic medium, and were not being supported by existing arts organizations. From its inception, Franklin Furnace’s energies have been focused on three aspects of “time-based” programming: a collection of artists’ books; a performance art program for emerging artists; and exhibitions of time-based arts, both site-specific works by contemporary artists, and historical and contemporary exhibitions of artists’ books and other time-based, ephemeral arts.