Contents for May 4th, 2026
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Weekly Spotlight: **VOICES from the FIRST FIFTY**
Weekly Spotlight: Symin Adive, FF FUND Recipient 2025-26, at The PIT NYC, May 14
1. Malcolm-X Betts, Keioui Keijaun Thomas, FF Alumns, receive inaugural Giorno Poetry SystemsTreat a Stranger Grant, 2026
2. Xandra Ibarra, FF Alumn, now online at Hyperallergic.com
3. Yoko Ono, FF Alumn, now online at ArtAndObject.com
4. David Khang, FF Alumn, at Centre A, Vancouver, BC, Canada, thru May 30 and more
5. Tim Miller, Meredith Monk, James Scruggs, FF Alumns, receive Jacki Apple Fund support 2026
6. Annie Lanzillotto, FF Alumn, now online at TheGoodLifeReview.com
7. Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel, FF Alumn, at The Hub, The Bronx, May 9
8. Eugene Rodriguez, FF Alumn, at Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA, opening May 16
9. Catherine Chun Hua Dong, FF Alumn, at National Arts Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, thru May 31
10. Peter Cramer, FF Alumn, at Le Petit Versailles Garden, Manhattan, May 7
11. Paul Zelevansky, FF Alumn, now online at https://vimeo.com/1186706047
12. Blaise Tobia, FF Alumn, at DaVinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA, thru May 24
13. Ed Woodham, FF Alumn, at Art Students League, Manhattan, May 6, 7, 8, 15
14. Mirtha Dermisache, FF Alumn, in new publication
15. Barbara Rosenthal, FF Alumn, at Port Authority, Manhattan, opening May 6
16. Suzanne Anker, FF Member, at Neue Galerie, Graz, Austria, thru Oct. 4
17. Simon Cutts, Erica Van Horn, FF Alumns, new publications
18. Laura Parnes, FF Alumn, receives 2026 NYSCA/Wave Farm: Media Arts Assistance Fund grant
19. Ann Messner, FF Alumn, May news
20. Christine DeFazio, FF Alumn, at The Bronx Museum, May 9
21. Robin Tewes, FF Alumn, at Artworks Gallery Works, Ware, MA, opening May 16
22. Peter d’Agostino, FF Alumn, now online at CastroProjects.it
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Weekly Spotlight: **VOICES from the FIRST FIFTY**
We’re bringing back the Weekly Spotlight for a limited time to celebrate Franklin Furnace’s 50th anniversary!
Over the coming weeks, you’ll hear from FF alumns, supporters, and friends about what this organization has meant to them and to the broader landscape of avant-garde art.
Franklin Furnace has provided a platform for over 27,000 artists and arts professionals. Many went on to shape institutions, win major awards, and influence how we think about contemporary art. But they all started somewhere. Often, that somewhere was here.
As we look toward the next 50 years, we are aiming to raise **$100,000**. With **less than $50,000 to go** (thanks to a generous lead gift), we’re asking you, our beloved community, to help us reach this goal.
This funding will allow us to react nimbly and proactively to protect and support artists in our current culture wars and increasingly costly environment. It will also enable us to keep doing what no other organization does — send performance artists into public schools.
Here’s the first **VOICE from the FIRST FIFTY**:
At Franklin Furnace’s 50th Anniversary Jubilee at BAM on April 10th, Ken Dewey Director Harley Spiller delivered a rousing speech that captured exactly why FF matters. ICYMI, here’s some of what Harley told the jubilant crowd of 350+ FF community members:
“This illustrious gathering is more than a jubilee, it’s art history in the making. Franklin Furnace stands with creatives who fight tooth & nail for our first amendment rights. We stand with you proudly for FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. But here’s the truth — freedom of expression doesn’t run on air. It runs on people who believe in it enough to fuel it. If you believe artists should be able to take risks without asking permission — you are part of what keeps this furnace lit. FF’s next fifty depends on all of us. Not someday. Not abstractly. Right Now. Because if we want artists to take risks…the institution that supports them must be fortified to sustain risk. That’s us!”
If you agree with Harley that freedom of expression needs people to protect those rights, and artists who take risks need institutions to fuel their work, please support FF at any level you can by clicking the button below:
https://secure.givelively.org/donate/franklin-furnace-archive-inc/first-fifty-campaign
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Weekly Spotlight: Symin Adive, FF FUND Recipient 2025-26, at The PIT NYC, May 14
Upcoming FUND performance: Symin Adive (FUND 2025-26) @sighmean
“Adult Fun (No, Not Like That): A Schoolyard Game”
May 14th, 2026 at 9:15PM
The PIT NYC (154 W 29th St, Floor 2) @thepitnyc
Project Description:
A recess game for adults that’s definitely not some kind of experiment. Get up on stage for an evening of fun? Sort of! “Adult Fun (No, Not Like That)” is an umbrella project that contains multiple components including a live participatory performance of a new schoolyard game for those long past school, interspersed by a series of absurdist micro short films meditating on the theme of lost childhood and the many barriers to fun. Created by comedian and artist Symin Adive (The Onion, Upright Citizens Brigade), this interactive obstacle-to-fun-course is designed to help me, help you, help me squeeeeeeeeeze the most out of adulthood, despite the ever-burning garbage fire threatening to engulf us all.
Audiences will be asked to come on stage, play according to the rules of the game, and 10 lucky contestants will be given a one-of-kind hat, a parting gift crafted from the finest of various junk found by the artist (rest will be given whatever is in the artist’s pocket).
Walls closing in? No problem. Running out of time? Always! But, good news: wholesome joy is now also for adults. Thanks to this mysterious new game that puts the fun back in adulthood. Come play while you still can.
Playing is mandatory.
Tickets for the show can be found on thepit-nyc.com for Thursday May 14th at 9:15pm on the main stage.
This work was made possible, in part, by the Franklin Furnace FUND 2025-26, supported by Jerome Foundation and the members and friends of Franklin Furnace Archive.
Artist bio:
Symin (sigh-mean) Adive makes sad/fun art. She is an artist and comedian (The Onion, Upright Citizens Brigade) as well as an Art Director/glorified Graphic Designer with clients like The Empire State Building. Symin is brown, bi, and a third word that starts with “B.”
The Bangladeshi artist was one of 9 creatives in NYC to receive a grant from The Franklin Furnace Fund; she has also won funding from the Queens Council on the Arts and the Norwegian Parliament.
Her work combines hurt and humor. It both overshares and sugarcoats. She uses her background in comedy and design to make the unpalatable palatable via multiple mediums (film, interactive, 2d, 3d). In her work, all the absurd and familiar ways in which we relate are of key importance especially if it’s hilariously sad and sadly, hilarious.
Her recent projects focus on community (or lack thereof) and creating fun-ish, interactive and thought provoking make-shift “third places” antithetical to the clinical walls of the art gallery. Adive specializes in making playful environments for people to contemplate otherwise darker subject matter like CPTSD, baseless hierarchies and lost childhoods.
Symin likes to think her current website looks better than the one she made when she was 11. Take a gander at: https://SyminAdive.com
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1. Malcolm-X Betts, Keioui Keijaun Thomas, FF Alumns, receive inaugural Giorno Poetry SystemsTreat a Stranger Grant, 2026
The inaugural 2026 edition of GPS’s new annual grant program awards a total of $54,540 to 12 artists, poets, and musicians.
There’s a phrase John Giorno would repeat over and over again:
Treat a complete stranger as a lover, hug them as good friends.
Between 1984 and 1994, via GPS’s AIDS Treatment Project, John gave money to other artists, poets, and musicians who needed support for medical expenses, food, rent, utility bills, or other emergencies. Cash went to Cookie Mueller, Arthur Russell, Tseng Kwong Chi, Darrel Ellis, Ray Navarro, among many others.
GPS has always been about artists showing up for other artists, and this simple idea takes many different forms. Building on the legacy of the AIDS Treatment Project is the new annual Treat a Stranger Grant, which allows artists, poets, and musicians to award unrestricted cash grants to other artists, poets, and musicians.
For this peer-to-peer and need-based grant initiative, a changing jury of artists, poets, and musicians—all members of the LGBTQIA+ community—meet three times over the course of several months: first to introduce and share their perspectives on current needs, then to nominate and discuss potential grantees, and finally to vote on how to distribute the funds. This unrestricted grant is by nomination only and is meant to assist with expenses such as housing, health, food, child-care, retirement, or any emergencies. The cost of living in New York never seems to stop rising.
The 2026 jury awarded a total of $54,540 to 12 artists, poets, and musicians:
Samiya Bashir
Malcolm-X Betts
Pe Ferreira
Mercy Kelly
Agosto Machado
Puppies Puppies (Jade Kuriki-Olivo)
Gavilán Rayna Russom
Jacolby Satterwhite
Keioui Keijaun Thomas
Christopher Udemezue
Anonymous
and
Anonymous
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2. Xandra Ibarra, FF Alumn, now online at Hyperallergic.com
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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3. Yoko Ono, FF Alumn, now online at ArtAndObject.com
Please visit this link:
Thank you
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4. David Khang, FF Alumn, at Centre A, Vancouver, BC, Canada, thru May 30 and more
“Butterfly Dreams” by David Khang
Centre A: Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
Exhibition: April 18 – May 30, 2026
Panel Discussion: Sat May 9, 2 PM
Location: #205-268 Keefer St. (2nd floor of the Sun Wah Centre), Vancouver
Gallery Hours: Wed–Sat, 12–6 PM
We are excited to announce our next exhibition at Centre A, Butterfly Dreams by David Khang! We are delighted to work with David again after his solo exhibition How to Feed A Piano (2008), a Franklin Furnace-supported project.
This exhibition is bookended by Khang’s early performances inspired by La Monte Young’s Compositions 1960 in Los Angeles, and his most recent site-specific work titled Camuflaje, in the mountains of Michoacán, Mexico, the wintering grounds for Monarch butterflies. Khang performed as Militant Monarch – a soldier dressed in butterfly-patterned fatigue – at the only place in the world where this soldier can truly camouflage among thousands of migrated Monarch butterflies. Khang’s material and metaphoric exploration of Monarch butterflies over two decades that weave together performance, sculpture, and photography are brought together in this show.
While the Monarch butterfly is universally viewed as a signifier of beauty, military signifiers are inseparably woven together in Khang’s works with the butterfly motif, intended to evoke unsettled reception.
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5. Tim Miller, Meredith Monk, James Scruggs, FF Alumns, receive Jacki Apple Fund support 2026
The Jacki Apple Fund, established in 2022 from the estate of artist/writer/critic/scholar Jacki Apple, is an all-volunteer fund (no office/no staff/no applications) seeking to be a catalyst, an energizer of Jacki’s legacy; responsive, inclusive, compassionate and committed to proven excellence.
The “AppleCore”: Jacki’s sister, publisher/educator Marjorie Bank, performer/writer/educator Jeff McMahon, educator/producer/artist Deborah Oliver, and Canadian diplomat Stuart Jackson-Hughes, announce our recent support:
— Four-day residency celebrating musician/choreographer/legend Meredith Monk at University of California/Irvine, with a sold-out performance, video/sound exhibition, artist talk, and workshop. https://art.arts.uci.edu/press-room/meredith-monk-honored-claire-trevor-lifetime-achievement-award
—Three unrestricted $10,000 direct fellowships for established career performance artists Tim Miller, James Scruggs and Cathy Weis/Sundays on Broadway
—Three $5,000 grants In support of the artist community:
Latitude for Art (LA Martin Cox) https://www.latitudeforart.org
Artist Sustainability Project https://davidhamiltonthomson.com/the-sustainability-project/
Paula Court Medical Support (via Performa) assisting ongoing healthcare needs of renowned NYC performance photographer Paula Court
These awards will complement our ongoing programs in support of individual artist projects: the yearly Jacki Apple Award in Performance and Artist Projects administered by LACE (LA ongoing) and Franklin Furnace (NYC 2023-26). As well, the Fund has supported FireBreak, aiding artists impacted by the LA fires, the DBR Lab presentation at National Sawdust (NYC), and ongoing events at UC/Irvine.
The 2026 LACE awardee is Edgar Arceneaux, for his project, Reclaiming Outterbridge, strengthening LA community connections after the Eaton Fires destroyed many homes and local businesses, including Outterbridge’s home, art collection, and archives.
Jacki Apple (1941-2022) the Furnace’s first official curator, was an artist, educator, critic, expert on performance art, and a beloved LA and NYC art world figure. Her collection of essays, Performance/Media/Art/Culture: Selected Essays 1983-2018 was published in 2019 (Intellect). More about Jacki’s life and work can be found in her obituary in Artillery, her artwork at https://www.jackiapple.com/ and performance work at https://www.youtube.com/@thejackiapplearchives
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6. Annie Lanzillotto, FF Alumn, now online at TheGoodLifeReview.com
Please visit this link:
https://thegoodlifereview.com/2026/04/30/author-qa-with-annie-rachele-lanzillotto/
Thank you.
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7. Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel, FF Alumn, at The Hub, The Bronx, May 9
How Do We Move in Public?
Saturday, May 9, 2026, 4:00-7:00 PM at The Hub, Bronx, NY
Free
To RSVP, go to: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-do-we-move-in-public-tickets-1978301304456?aff=oddtdtcreator
How Do We Move in Public? is the second program in Social Practice CUNY’s 2026 series How Do We ___________ in Public?: a cycle of four free experimental events responding to contemporary crises shaping the cultural field, including the defunding and targeting of public institutions and the erosion of shared civic space.
This second program in the series is partnered with BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance during the Boogie Down Dance Series.
Organized by Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel, this event brings together dancers/ choreographers with connections to the Bronx to generate movement-based actions in public spaces in the South Bronx: Argelia Arreola (with support from Pepatián: Bronx Arts ColLABorative), Ana ‘Rokafella’ García, Paloma McGregor/Angela’s Pulse, and Alethea Pace. Responding to escalating surveillance, policing, and state violence, particularly the terrorization of Black and Brown communities under ongoing ICE raids, the program advances movement as a counter-response to neglect, with care, and shared imagination, asking how bodies navigate, reshape, and reclaim urban space under conditions of threat.
This program will activate several points along 3rd Avenue and 149th Street, a major cultural crossroads at the heart of the South Bronx called The Hub, and is funded by the Mellon Foundation and the Eugene M. Lang Foundation.
Artist Bios
Argelia Arreola is a Bronx-based Mexican dancer, choreographer, and musician, deeply passionate about rhythm and the African influences embedded in diverse artistic expressions. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Contemporary Dance from Universidad Veracruzana in Mexico and has received over 23 years of formal training in traditional Guinean dance. Argelia leads her own artistic project, AcustiKorp, where she blends African, Afro-Cuban, and Mexican dance vocabularies through a contemporary lens. She is also a dancer and choreographer with Ballet Nepantla, a soloist performer and musician with La Mezcla Ensamble and a member of the Afro-Mexican band Jarana Beat, highlighting her versatility across dance, music, and percussion. Argelia has performed at prominent Venues and Festivals including Carnegie Hall, Festival Internacional Cervantino, Zócalo of Mexico City, Lincoln Center, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, BAM Dance Africa, Festival Danzas Negras CDMX, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Lincoln Center, Battery Dance Festival, Salvatore Capezio Theater at Peridance, Bryant Park Festival, BAAD Bronx. She is a 2025 Bronx Dance Fund Fellow through the Bronx Council on the Arts for the creation of her new choreographic work Hope Made Bread “una historia sobre Las Patronas”, inspired by Las Patronas, Mexico. She is also a recipient of the 2026 Bronx Cultural Visions Grant from the same organization to support the production of this work.
Ana “Rokafella” García is a NYC native of Puerto Rican descent who has represented Women in Hip-hop dance professionally over the past three decades. She co-founded Full Circle Prod Inc- NYC’s only non profit Break Dance Theater company with her husband Bboy Kwikstep generating theater pieces, original poetry and local dance related events. In addition to directing the documentary about Bgirls “All the Ladies Say” she coproduced a Hip hop variety TV show entitled Kwik2Rok fwith Kwiktep for BronxNet TV. She is hired internationally to judge Break dance competitions based on her knowledge of the classic Hip-hop dance style. She has hosted Breakin sessions at various locations in NYC since 1997 including The Point CDC, The Door, High Bridge and Alfred E Smith and had worked with female Japanese Graffiti Writer Shiro to create SHIROKA their T Shirt line4. Presently as an Adjunct Professor at The New School and Sarah Lawrence College, she motivates aspiring dancers to understand the Afro Diasporic roots of Hip hop and Club dance in addition to learning the business side of being an independent artist.
Paloma McGregor is an award-winning choreographer, writer, and arts leader, and the co-founder and Executive Artistic Director of Angela’s Pulse. For nearly two decades, Paloma has created performance works that center communities of color, blending a choreographer’s craft, a journalist’s urgency, and a community organizer’s vision. Through Angela’s Pulse, she has developed two signature programs: Dancing While Black, a platform for community-building and visibility among Black dance artists, and Building a Better Fishtrap, an iterative performance project rooted in her family’s vanishing fishing tradition and questions of heritage, resilience, and belonging. Paloma’s honors include the Herb Alpert Award (2025), Soros Arts Fellowship (2020), Dance/USA Fellowship (2019) and NY Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award (2017). She has performed at the Venice Biennale, the United Nations, State Department tours to South America and Turkey, and the World Festival of Black Arts in Senegal.
Alethea Pace is a Bronx-based interdisciplinary performing artist committed to creating work in and with her community that is rooted in social justice. She is a 2025 EPA Harlem River Artist-in-Residence, 2024 MAP Fund Recipient, 2023-2025 Civic Practice Partnership Artist-in-Residence at the Met Museum, and a 2021 Dance Magazine Harkness Promise Awardee. Her work has been presented by The Met Museum, BAAD!, Works and Process/Guggenheim, Pregones Theater, Dancing While Black, Danspace Project, New York Live Arts and the 92Y, to name a few. Alethea trained at Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center in the Bronx, and has a BA in Urban Design from NYU, an MFA in Digital and Interdisciplinary Arts from the City College of New York, and is an adjunct professor at Lehman College.
To learn more about Social Practice CUNY, go to: https://socialpracticecuny.org
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8. Eugene Rodriguez, FF Alumn, at Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA, opening May 16
Eugene Rodriguez, FF Alumn, announces his first solo museum exhibition, “Velvet Notes: Conversando con Pedro Guzmán,” opening May 16th at Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA.
Here is a link to the museum website page:
https://www.lancastermoah.org/exhibitions/eugene-rodriguez-velvet-notes
Thank you.
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9. Catherine Chun Hua Dong, FF Alumn, at National Arts Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, thru May 31
Do you know that May is Canadian Asian Heritage Month? I am honoured to present my digital artwork, “The Currents” in celebration of it. The work is currently on view at the Kipnes Lantern at National Arts Centre / Centre national des Arts in Ottawa throughout the month of May. If you are in Ottawa, please stop by. Catherine
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10. Peter Cramer, FF Alumn, at Le Petit Versailles Garden, Manhattan, May 7
A benefit screening for Lebanon: 3 short films that recount visceral stories of dispossession caused by the Israeli occupation.
Join us for a benefit screening for Lebanon of 3 short films that recount poetically visceral stories of Palestinian and Lebanese dispossession and exile caused by the Israeli occupation. After the viewing, stick around for a reflective and grounding conversation between Rawya El Chab and Rami Dinnawi.
This event will be held on Thursday, May 7th from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm at Le Petit Versailles Garden in NYC (247 E 2nd St, New York, NY 10009).
Suggested donation $25. If you can’t attend and would like to donate Venmo @ marco-lanier. (Please write “TREE” in the note)
Since March 1st, 2026, Israel has intensified its war on Lebanon by martyring and wounding thousands, relentlessly bombing the country, and erasing villages in the South. Residents were forced to flee large populated areas across the South, the Beqaa, and Beirut, leaving everything behind. Many families are now living in tents, and overcrowded schools without access to basic necessities. Following the “ceasefire” announced on April 17th, a number of locals have been returning to their lands but with no house to sleep in. Israel is still bombarding the South.
We urgently need your support to send trusted volunteers on the ground who provide displaced families with essential aid. The donations raised will be benefiting @tanseqeye_shaabeye_lebanon and @tarablos.tastajib
Synopses:
untitled part 3a: occupied territories (2001, 23’) by Jayce Salloum Excerpts from conversations of two elder Palestinians, Abdel Majid Fadl Ali Hassan and Nameh Hussein Suleiman, who have been living in refugee camps in Lebanon since 1948, retelling their journeys of forced displacement. untitled part 3b: (as if) beauty never ends.. (2002, 11’) by Jayce Salloum With the voice over of Abdel Majid Fadl Ali Hassan narrating a story told by the rubble of his home in Palestine, the tape permeates into an intense essay on dystopia in contemporary times, providing an elegiac response to the ongoing Palestinian dispossession.
The Tree of Hell (2024, 22’) by Raed Zeno A documentary that draws a parallel between an invasive tree that grows in front of Raed’s house threatening local environmental diversity, and the continuous Israeli invasion and destruction of Lebanon.
This event is organized by Katarina and Marco Lanier, and Nour Helou, with Peter Cramer.
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11. Paul Zelevansky, FF Alumn, now online at https://vimeo.com/1186706047
TO THE GREAT BLANKNESS
MAILING LIST:
“PLAYING FOR TIME”
PZ, April 27, 2026
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12. Blaise Tobia, FF Alumn, at DaVinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA, thru May 24
I’m pleased to invite you to my exhibition “Wheat Paste and Red Sauce” at the DaVinci Art Alliance. It includes over fifty photographs of Italian street art made between 2000 and 2025. [Italian street art is some of the best in the world – inventive, witty, political, often beautiful.]
Also on display at DVAA is a group exhibition “Addenda,” curated by Hester Stinnet and Katie Garth.
The exhibitions run from April 30 to May 24; open hours at DVAA will be Friday and Saturday, 11-6 PM and Sundays 1-5 PM, when I’ll be gallery sitting. The opening reception is Saturday, May 2, 5-7 PM and the closing, with artist talks, is Sunday, May 24, noon-2 PM. DVAA is located at 704 Catherine Street, across from the Fleisher Art Memorial.
In the meanwhile, you’re welcome to view the online PDF Catalog for the exhibition.
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13. Ed Woodham, FF Alumn, at Art Students League, Manhattan, May 6, 7, 8, 15
LOOK HERE: Visual Interventions in Public Space
A new workshop with Ed Woodham
The Arts Students League of New York
Wednesday-Friday, May 6-8, and Friday, May 15, 2026, 1-4:30 pm.
A four-session workshop that invites participants and public viewers to see everyday spaces as places for creative actions. Streets, sidewalks, storefronts, and shared social spaces become raw material for making eye-catching, thoughtful interventions that surprise, delight, and gently disrupt everyday routines. Participants will explore contemporary public art through accessible prompts and hands-on experimentation – using text, objects, images, and simple actions to create visually striking work in public space. The workshop culminates in a shared public presentation on 57th Street, where projects appear briefly, boldly, and mindfully. Open to artists and non-artists alike, this class welcomes anyone curious about making visual work beyond the white cube and responding creatively to the world during this fragile time.
Visit for more info & to register: https://workshops.artstudentsleague.org/…/Woodham-WS…
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14. Mirtha Dermisache, FF Alumn, in new publication
Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959–1979
https://primaryinformation.org/product/women-in-concrete-poetry-1959-1979/
We are pleased to announce that Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959–1979 is back in print!
First published in 2020, the book is an expansive anthology focused on concrete poetry written by women in the groundbreaking movement’s early history. It features fifty writers and artists from Europe, Japan, Latin America, and the United States selected by editors Alex Balgiu and Mónica de la Torre.
Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959–1979 takes as its point of departure Materializzazione del linguaggio—the groundbreaking exhibition of visual and concrete poetry by women curated by Italian feminist artist Mirella Bentivoglio for the Venice Biennale in 1978. Through this exhibition and others she curated, Bentivoglio traced constellations of women artists working at the intersection of the verbal and visual who sought to “reactivate the atrophied tools of communication” and liberate words from the conventions of genre, gender, and the strictures of the patriarchy and normative syntax.
The works in this volume evolved from previous manifestations of concrete poetry as defined in foundational manifestos by Öyvind Fahlström, Eugen Gomringer, and the Brazilian Noigandres group. While some works are easily recognized as concrete poetry, as documented in canonical anthologies edited by Mary Ellen Solt and Emmett Williams in the late ’60s, it also features expansive serial works that are overtly feminist and often trouble legibility. Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959–1979 revisits the figures in Bentivoglio’s orbit and includes works by women practicing in other milieus in the United States, Eastern Europe, and South America who were similarly concerned with activating the visual and sonic properties of language and experimenting with poetry’s spatial syntax.
Artists and writers include Lenora de Barros, Ana Bella Geiger, and Mira Schendel from Brazil; Mirella Bentivoglio, Tomaso Binga, Liliana Landi, Anna Oberto, and Giovanna Sandri from Italy; Amanda Berenguer from Uruguay; Suzanne Bernard and Ilse Garnier from France; Blanca Calparsoro from Spain; Paula Claire and Jennifer Pike from the UK; Betty Danon from Turkey; Mirtha Dermisache from Argentina; Bohumila Grögerová from the Czech Republic; Ana Hatherly and Salette Tavares from Portugal; Madeline Gins, Susan Howe, Liliane Lijn, Mary Ellen Solt, and Rosmarie Waldrop from the US; Irma Blank and Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt from Germany; Chima Sunada from Japan; and Katalin Ladik and Bogdanka Poznanović from the former Yugoslavia.
Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959–1979 is 488 pages, measures 8 x 9 inches, and retails for $35.00.
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15. Barbara Rosenthal, FF Alumn, at Port Authority, Manhattan, opening May 6
Barbara Rosenthal, FF Alumn, will perform “Provocation Cards Interact” during the exhibition of her artist’s book folio “Provocation Cards” in vitrine of the 42nd St subway station as part of the new White Box Portable series running Wed, May 6 – 26, and Opening May 6 (6-8pm. Curated by Juan Puntes and Yohanna Magdalene Roa.
42nd Street–8th Ave Subway station in New York City. (Above Lines A, C, E, direction downtown) A high-traffic site provided by ChaShaMa and the MTA
White Box Portable
“Barbara Rosenthal: Provocation Cards Interact” performance during Opening.
More info: https://whiteboxny.org
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16. Suzanne Anker, FF Member, at Neue Galerie, Graz, Austria, thru Oct. 4
Analytical Beauty
April 24 to October 4, 2026
Neue Galerie, Graz, Austria
The concept of Analytical Beauty, primarily defined by William Hogarth in 1753, is the theory that beauty is not arbitrary but rooted in specific, analyzeable formal principles. It focuses on how curved “lines of beauty” engage the eye, moving beyond just symmetry to include movement and composition. Such notions of “Analytical Beauty,” also refers to the current exhibition at Neue Galerie, Graz, which concentrates on intrinsic geometric patterns in some of the botanical specimens. Also on view are previously unseen floral depictions linking science and art.
Suzanne Anker is a visual artist and theorist working at the nexus of art and the biological sciences. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally in museums and galleries including the Beijing Art and Technology Biennale, the Daejeon Biennale 2018, Korea, The Center for Art and Media Technology Karlsruhe | ZKM, the International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, the Walker Art Center, the Smithsonian Institute, the Phillips Collection, P.S.1 Museum, the JP Getty Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art in Japan. She is the Chair of the Fine Arts Department of School of Visual Arts in New York, where she continues to interweave traditional and experimental media in her department’s Bio Art Laboratory. She is also the recipient of SLSA’s (Society of Literature, Science and the Arts) Lifetime Achievement Award (2024).
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17. Simon Cutts, Erica Van Horn, FF Alumns, new publications
pyclets
Simon Cutts
2026
A succession of quotations harboured by the author masquerading as the tiny
fermented cakes of his home town. 40pp 145 x 150mm printed digitally hardback with embossed image on cover. “If there was one reader left in the world, I would write to that reader as lovingly as I do now” – Douglas Woolf €15.00
and
Walking the Portes
Simon Cutts and Erica Van Horn
2025
Winters in Paris 2014-2019. Distillation of the on-line journal; “Notes from an
Urban Hibernation”; 180 x 130mm, 216pp ISBN978 0 906630 64 8 printed digitally hardback with inset cover image. “A smart example of the duo’s work, this pleasingly crafted volume brings together numerous short reports from a spell spent exploring the mythic périphérique of the city by foot.” – Michael Caines, TLS €18.00
to order in Europe and the world http://coracle.ie/category/new/
to order in UK www.booksaboutart.co.uk
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18. Laura Parnes, FF Alumn, receives 2026 NYSCA/Wave Farm: Media Arts Assistance Fund grant
Please visit this link:
https://wavefarm.org/wf/newsroom/yr89wm
Thank you.
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19. Ann Messner, FF Alumn, May news
Dear Friends,
I hope this finds you coping as best as you can, understanding there is so much difficult and unacceptable and not the world we would hope to imagine.
(Yet, still imagining) I wanted to update you on several upcoming exhibitions/initiatives through which I will be exhibiting works:
The early super 8 films from the 1970’s, several of which had not been digitized until
2023 (this will be their first screening in Germany), along with the recent 2023
collaborative intervention with the Austrian artist Katharina Gruzei ‘blind me! LIGHT’,
will be included in the Urban Art Biennale 2026 at Völklinger Hütte, a UNESCO
World Heritage Site, Völklingen, Germany from May 10 thru November 15, 2026.
Info on the Biennale:
https://voelklinger-huette.org/en/exhibitions/-/urban-art-biennale-2026/985
History of the industrial site Völklinger Hütte:
https://voelklinger-huette.org/en
There will be 3 small early sculptures from 1986, 1989 and 2005 selected by DaVila-
Villa & Stothart (DVS) included in the JDJ & Chozick Family Art Gallery at NADA the
New Art Dealers Alliance May 13 thru 17, 2026, located at the at the Starrett-Lehigh
Building, 601 West 26th Street.
https://www.newartdealers.org/fairs/nada-new-york-2026/introduction
https://hyperallergic.com/nada-new-york-2026-welcomes-121-international-galleries
And finally looking forward to At the Edge, curated by Lisa Panzera at the Shirley
Fiterman Art Center, Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), New York,
June 10 thru August 15, 2026, located at 81 Barclay Street, Lower Manhattan.
h#ps://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/sfac/upcoming-exhibi9ons/
h#ps://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/sfac/visit/
This is all for now. And again I hope this finds each of you well.
Warmly,
Ann
ann messner
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20. Christine DeFazio, FF Alumn, at The Bronx Museum, May 9
Christine DeFazio will be featured at the First Annual Bronx Art & Book Festival at the Bronx Museum on Saturday May 9 (1:00-5:00 pm) alongside her publisher David Parker of Lived Places Publishing. She will be signing copies of her book Bronx Visual Identity from Subway Writers to Mural Artists: Aerosol Art from 1968 to the Present. There will be guest appearances of the OG’s of tagging and aerosol art with black book signing at her table.
THE FIRST BRONX ART & BOOK FESTIVAL
Saturday, May 9 • 1:00 – 5:00 PM
For All Ages • Free • Drop In At The Bronx Museum
(1040 Grand Concourse
The Bronx Museum is delighted to host The First Bronx Art & Book Festival, along with program partners: the BX Safe Zone Consulting and Brooklyn Book Bodega.
All are welcome to drop by the Museum for this action-packed program featuring local authors, live music by Cactus Rose NYC, book give-aways, and more!
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21. Robin Tewes, FF Alumn, at Artworks Gallery Works, Ware, MA, opening May 16
W.O.W: WILD ORNERY WOMEN
WISDOM OF WOMEN
At ARTWORKS GALLERY WORKS
69 Main Street, Ware MA. 01082
RECEPTION ON SATURDAY, MAY 16TH, 2-4PM
EXHIBITION DATES: MAY 16TH – JUNE 20TH
GALLERY HOURS: SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS 1-4PM
CURATED BY TERRY ROONEY
ARTISTS: DENISE BEAUDET, IRENE CHRISTENSEN, ROSELLE CHARTOCK, CYNTHIA CONSENTINO, LYN HORAN, MOLLIE KELLOGG, SUSAN MONTGOMERY, HOLLY MURRAY, GRACE GRAUPE PILLARD, TERRY ROONEY, ROBIN TEWES
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
22. Peter d’Agostino, FF Alumn, now online at CastroProjects.it
AFOCASTRO advisory board, now online at
[ https://castroprojects.it/en/american-friends-of-castro-projects ]
CASTRO Projects (Contemporary Art STudios ROme) is dedicated to alternative education and production in the field of Contemporary Art [ https://castroprojects.it/en ]
Peter d’Agostino is an artist and professor emeritus of film and media arts, Temple University, Philadelphia.
[ https://peterdagostino.com ]
His video works are distributed by EAI, New York.
[ https://www.eai.org/artists/peter-d-agostino/titles ]
Thank you.
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Goings On is compiled weekly by Rohan Subramaniam, Archive Intern
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