Sorry, guys. Here's another one I missed somehow:Flux Factory began in Williamsburg in 1994 and moved to its present location five years ago to flee the rising rents of Brooklyn. It has grown into one of the city's most beloved art groupse city, sponsoring such off-beat projects as building a monument to the city of Paterson, N.J., marathon group novel-writing, and walking tours of fake street art.
MTA takeover puts Factory in Flux
They settled in Long Island City in 2002, and signed a 15-year lease only to find out last year that they would be homeless again.
Lenny Gartner, the owner of Flux Factory's building, said that the MTA made one, "take-it-or-leave-it" offer.
6 comments:
Now, if this is some tweeded group money will be ready to not only keep them, but expand their programs.
But these are artists. As far as the clubhouse is concerned, unless you can sit on a Queens based arts board (to add some polish to your brutish resume) arts are for some retired bored amateur from Malba.
You can always get a photo op surrounded by beaming faces when you go to a senior center art exhibit featuring things like pets, flowers, or the wonderful diversity of Queens.
These guys were on borrowed time in Queens when they set an exhibit up in the Queens museum and started to burrow through the flimsy sheetrock in the building.
They were actually featured in Harpers Magazine a few years back.
Yet another example of "the arts"
being USED to pioneer
and build up the image of an area.
When it's fully ripened
and primed for "development"....
the real estate moguls move in
and convince the hipsters,
who HAVE THE expendable $$$$$,
to gobble up the neighborhood.
The ARTISTS are expendable.
They've done their job transforming the area
and are immediately encouraged to leave!
Thus the Christlike figure
of the artist as a sacrificial lamb
continues into perpetuity.
Man,
THAT sucks. I always liked their work on 43rd St when I lived in Sunnyside. They added to the neighborhood in ways unquantifiable and profound. Their building (and block) however, sucked. Industrial Maspeth, Laurel Hill or Blissville is where they should look, though they are all too far from the subway.
Next stop ? BUSHWICK
Sad, sad, sad. I wrote about these guys a couple of times for the Queens Chronicle and always enjoyed their hilariously inventive art. Another reason I'm happy I moved back to Manhattan after getting priced out of Queens(!).
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