Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc. "GOINGS ON"
CONTENTS:
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1. Adrianne Wortzel, FF Fundwinner 2003-04, launches Eliza Redux
2. G. H. Hovagimyan, FF Alumn, at Pace Digital Gallery, Manhattan, April
7-May 1
3. Jim Costanzo, FF Member, on Wall Street, Manhattan, April 1
4. Quimetta Perle, FF Alumn, at Central Library, Brooklyn, opening April 7
5. Alicia Grullon, FF Alumn, in Manhattan, thru March 2010
6. Frank Moore, FF Alumn, now online
7. Kate Gilmore, FF Alumn, Spring 2009 events
8. Annie Lanzillotto, FF Alumn, at Smalls Jazz Club, Manhattan, April 11
9. Dominic Alleluia, FF Alumn, at Pas Positas College, Livermore, CA,
opening April 3
10. Jessica Hagedorn, FF Alumn, at New York University, Manhattan, April 14
11. Donna Henes, FF Alumn, in Brooklyn, April 11
12. Laura Parnes, FF Alumn, in The New York Times, March 27
13. Sol LeWitt, FF Alumn, in Berlin, Germany, opening April 18
14. Claudia DeMonte, FF Alumn, at Jan Colle Gallery, Ghent, Belgium, opening
April 26
15. Joseph Nechvatal, FF Alumn, now online
16. Marina Abramovic, FF Alumn, at Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana,
Cuba, thru April 30
17. Mendi Lewis Obadike, FF Alumn, now online
18. Edward Gomez, FF Alumn, launches new website
19. Dynasty Handbag, FF Alumn, at Cakeshop, Manhattan, April 1, and more
20. Heike Roms, FF Alumn, receives Performance Art research grant
21. Symposium on media and digital art, Guggenheim Museum, Manhattan, May 1
22. Lance Horne, Meow Meow, FF Alumns, in Manhattan, April
23. Linda Montano, FF Alumn, not in Montreal, and more
24. Alyson Pou, FF Alumn, at South Street Seaport Museum, Manhattan, thru
April 19
25. Vernita Nemec, FF Alumn, at Judson Church, Manhattan, April 20
26. Valerie Tevere, Angel Nevarez, FF Alumns, at Pratt Manhattan Gallery,
April 1
27. Micki Watanabe Spiller, FF Alumn, at Univ. of Arkansas, Fayetteville,
thru April 15
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6. Frank Moore, FF Alumn, now online
Video of the interview I did with the N.Y.C. public access channel in 1987 in Annie Sprinkle's apartment is now online at
http://www.eroplay.com/intimatetheater/intimate.html This needs a set up. The interview took place the day after the performance we did at The Sixth Sense Galley in the East Village and we had done our first performance at Franklin Furnace the week before. The crew was at the Sixth Sense and did an impromptu interview at the end of the performance as Veronica Vera and I sat nude together. It was a great ending to the three hour performance. But they were not the only film crew filming that performance. The other crew was for the film, MONDO NEW YORK.
I got in that film by a fluke. They were thinking about having Annie in it. She was in my cast for Franklin Furnace. She talked me up to them. They decided to film my performance. I made sure she was in my cast. They wanted to film my Franklin Furnace piece. But that was a five hour performance with over fifteen people in the cast. A complex ritual. I had experienced big movie crews shooting my OUTRAGEOUS BEAUTY REVUE in the late Seventies and how they change [to put it nicely!] the experience in the ritual. So I did not let them shoot at the Furnace. But we set up another performance at Annie's friend's intimate gallery for them to shoot. This was a good call! As we were setting up for the show, the film's director and the producer tried to bully Linda into changing things for the film. She just directed them to talk to me. I matched their N.Y.C. energy and had them carefully eating out of my hands. They agreed to no bright lights. But then when the performance started, they blasted the lights, washing out the slides projected upon the nude bodies, not to mention the dreamlike quality of the performance. But after ten minutes they turned off the lights and packed up and left. So the audience settled back for the three hour experience! When you watch that movie, you now know the real story! Back to the interview. For years I had been pissing off "the art world" by warning that the political correctness pressure put on artists by other artists would invite outside censorship. This was years before Senator Helms targeted us artists for doing "obscene" work. Funny, it was the script of my Franklin Furnace performance that got me on the targeted list. Reporters from a N.Y.C. Moonies' newspaper got into the Franklin Furnace's archive looking for sexy hot pieces for their expose on the n. e. a. And they found my script! Not only erotic, not only nudity, but shamanistic! Also funny. In the next room Annie was interviewing Karen Finley for an adult magazine. So in the apartment that afternoon there were three of the original five Helms targeted performance artists. At the time Annie was seeing herself as just an adult star. Even when I predicted that she would become an important performance artist. It would be little more than a year before she would do her first one-person show. Karen was known as an underground artist. But it would take her a couple more years before she would break through to fame. By the way, it was Karen who got me the Franklin Furnace gig.
