Vertical File documentations by Tsubasa Berg, courtesy of Franklin Furnace.
[March 31, 2025 | 5:00–6:00 PM EST]
Franklin Furnace invited the public to a special panel discussion marking the conclusion of the exhibition “Hidden in the Stacks: Digitizing Franklin Furnace Archive Artists’ Books Collection“ at Pratt Institute Library.
Since its founding in 1976, Franklin Furnace has actively collected and preserved artists’ books, housing these works—along with original materials donated by artists—within its Vertical Files collection.
This panel celebrated the milestone digitization of these Vertical Files, offering insight into the archival process, the relationship between artists and archives, and the challenges and possibilities of digitization.
Featured speakers included participating artists Conrad Gleber, Ann Messner, and Sur Rodney (Sur), who discussed their experiences working with archival materials as part of their artistic practice. Exhibition curators and Franklin Furnace archivists Fang-Yu Liu and Nicole Rosengurt shared behind-the-scenes details of the digitization project, including photographic setup, database development, and cataloging methods.
Moderated by Kathy Carbone, Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute School of Information, this discussion offered a rare opportunity to explore how archival collections are preserved, activated, and reimagined in the digital era.
Video documentation of the March 31, 2025, 5:00–6:00 PM EST event of Hidden in the Stacks Panel Discussion. Recorded by Pratt Library Library and edited by Xinan Ran.
Conrad Gleber has had a long and distinguished career in art and new media design. His sculpture, photography and artists’ books have been exhibited nationally and internationally including at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, in Europe at the Kunsthalle Museum, Düsseldorf, Germany and in Tokyo at Keio University.
He earned a Master of Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a PhD in educational research at Florida State University. In 2018, he retired from La Salle University in Philadelphia where he taught digital art studio courses and seminar classes on the critical issues related to media arts and culture.
Ann Messner is a trans-disciplinary artist who has explored the relationship between the individual body and the body politic over the course of her five- decade career. Through sculpture, installation, performance, film/video, and guerilla- style public intervention, Messner has continually tested the pliability of the social contract while examining the fault-lines between collective and self- consciousness. Her work is a research based, oKen project focused, practice challenged by the more perplexing of dilemmas society finds itself in inner conflict over. Through processes of discernment, social constructions of reality are engaged and interrogated.
Sur Rodney (Sur) is a Canadian-born writer, curator, and archivist who works collaboratively, drawing variously on performance, his writing, and community archives. Renowned for his partnership with art dealer Gracie Mansion in the early 1980s, preceeds his 23-year partnership with the Fluxus artist Geoffrey Hendricks from 1995-2018 and managing the Lorraine O’Grady studio (2008-2024).
Hidden in the Stacks: Digitizing the Franklin Furnace Archive Artists’ Books Vertical Files, the 10th Annual Live at the Library exhibition, is curated by Fang-Yu Liu and Nicole Rosengurt, with photography by Tsubasa F. Berg, in memory of Michael Katchen, Senior Archivist, Franklin Furnace. LATL X is presented in partnership with The Pine Tree Foundation of New York, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; The New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; Pratt Institute Libraries; The Silicon Valley Community Foundation; and the Board of Directors, members, and friends of Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc.
