A SEMI-LEGITIMATE HISTORY of THE EVOLUTION OF FLUX
The following interviews were collected between March and April 2013, in an attempt to understand the development of the organizational structure of Flux Factory since it first began in 1994.
The people I spoke with are some of the individuals I see as having played an important transformative or stabilizing role in the Flux community, but they are only some of the voices from this very complex network of people. There are many more people who should have been included in these interviews, but could not be due to time constraints. I encourage others involved with Flux Factory to continue to add to this ongoing oral history.
The accompanying drawings are my own interpretation of the Flux organism, and its evolution.
MORGAN MEIS and STEPHANY ANNE GOLDBERG
Jaime Iglehart: Can you tell me about the very first origins of Flux Factory?
Morgan Meis: Flux started in 1994 as an informal living space on Kent ave, in Williamsburg. It was in the same building which later became Secret Project Robot. The very, very, very first version of Flux in 1994 only had half of the top floor of that warehouse, and there were five of us in that very first version. By the end of that second year the landlord said to me, "do you want to take the rest of the floor, and, I for some reason said yes. And then it expanded.
It was a rough neighborhood at that time, and you could still find space for cheap. Landlords had these huge 1,000 foot warehouses they didn't know what to do with. When we first moved in, we actually had trouble trying to convince the phone company to install a phone in the building. If we had to make a phone call, we had to go to a payphone at the corner, and the streets were lined with trucker prostitutes, and the trucks would be rumbling by. I remember trying to call my parents and convince them I was okay, looking out at this.
I managed to apply for a Sears credit card at that time, and purchased a pool table on the Sears credit card, which I think we never paid off, and that was kind of the center of that big room for a long time, was that pool table. A lot of the social activity at Flux happened around that pool table. And everything in that room one day, Toshi decided to paint white, and we called it the white room--
Stephanie Goldberg (Shuffy): He even painted the windows white, so we couldn't even see out of them.
MM: And then Shuffy and Alex I think at some point tried to scrape the windows, cause it was really, it felt like an insane asylum in there, it was a really freaky thing, and he painted the pool table white--
SG: Well it was already an insane asylum but it didn't have to actually look like one.
MM: And even, by the time we left there, there was still remnants of the white room, and things wrapped in white.
SG: We couldn't get rid of it.
JI: So, up until 2002, it was just a house, right?
SG: Well, we put the stage in...somewhere around 2000. We put the stage in before Jean came.
MM: And then, when did we start Flux Thursdays? We started doing Flux Thursdays--
S: In 1999.
MM: In '99. And that was, it wasn't like we put ads for it in the village voice or anything, but, people from the neighborhood would come, and it was kind of a thing around Williamsburg, where people knew that you could come to Flux, and get a crappy dinner and witness some terrible art. Sometimes legendarily bad, so that, in fact, it became kind of a joke, and Dan [Mulcare] started a series called Body Night, which was one of the most legendary of the early Flux Thursdays-- his thing was everyone would do something on the body, and it turned in to, you know, people doing like tricks with their stomachs that didn't really work, and--
SG: Extremely long stories about bleeding.
MM: Long stories about accidents and then-- But this all started in '99. So, when Jean and Seb came, we were already doing that, and we were also doing, sometimes, little music shows, like the Negatones, which was Jay Braun's band, would play sometimes. And, people would come, and it would become kind of a party, and just loud music all night kind of thing.
SG: Even before the stage, we had started putting on some-- they were basically parties, but they were sort of high concept parties. Where we would have different rooms with different weird things, so I think that those are probably the very first things.
JI: Jean said something about it being called Bupco? SG: Bobco. And Poo village.
MM: Bobco was a name, that, honestly, I have no idea how it started, but I think it was a drunken, drug addled night, where that seemed like the most hilarious thing in the world. Poo Village is obvious, so, that needs no explanation, and, Flux Factory was kind of a joke name, and was never an official name until some point when we had to apply for our 501C3 not for profit status, and we needed an official name of the place. It was decided that Flux Factory, because it vaguely sounded like other art movements, would be more impressive to people. I don' t think we ever thought about it as, "wait a second this means that this place is going to be named this for the rest of it's history as an art institution."
SG: It's a terrible name.
MM: Because in so many ways it's just a ridiculously stupid name, but that was written in
stone once we filed that paperwork. It was sort of, you couldn't go back.
JI: There were no house meetings or any kind of meetings at all until Flux 2, right? MM: No, there were meetings. We would have--
SG: Oh, that's true, we did start having meetings, actually, in Flux 1.
MM: But they were more informal, they were more around the thing of like, "the plumbing stopped working, what should we do?" "There's a small fire in the back. Let's have a
meeting." It was not a regular thing, and it didn't have the thing of really, everyone in the house kind of communally deciding things, they way it did in Flux 2.
JI: Was eating together such a big thing right from the beginning, or did that evolve?
MM: That was maybe the most important kind of communal thing. And again, there were no rules about it, it was just kind of something we all did, and, because we were living together a lot more at that time, in the sense of, everybody would kind of -- it was a bit of a smaller group, so it was just natural that every night we would say, "okay, what are we doing for dinner," and when the group got bigger, that just sort of carried forward.
JI: It's funny, because the kitchen is incredibly central to all of the art shows, and almost everything that comes out if Flux. One of the great things about Flux is that just having breakfast can become an art project later.
MM: Yeah, and when I look back to a lot of the collective projects we did, they were often different ways of capturing that experience aesthetically in other ways, just attempts to work with that same feeling, and to represent it to everyone else.
SG: Yeah.
JI: How much was the minimum and maximum rent in Flux 1?
MM: Flux 1 was, I mean, we, that was before Williamsburg--
SG: I can tell you right now that when I first moved in to Flux 1, when it didn't even have walls, my rent was $250, which was the prime motivator for me moving in.
MM: Yeah, I think there was, the inner room was maybe a little less. $200. The maximum rent in that space was $300.
JI: Wow. That's amazing.
MM: Yeah, that period in Williamsburg was a lot more like Berlin or something, because it was affordable to live in New York City still, if you lived in those zones. I mean, that whole world is gone now, because of that change. And then, gradually the rent went up a little bit. There were gradual increases built into the rent, and it did go up over the years, but it was always pretty damn cheap. It was when we moved to Flux 2, rents in general all over the city had gone up so much more, and then it shifted. It was still-- I think Jean's little tiny room in Flux 2 was still like $350 bucks.
S: And his was the cheapest.
M: And then, some of the bigger rooms, which had windows, were more like $500 I think.
JI: Sorry for all these data questions. But, I'm interested in how the economics of the city and gentrification played a part in Flux's evolution.
MM: Which it certainly did.
SG: Which it absolutely did.
JI: When did you guys become a 501C3? Was it before or after the eviction of Flux 1? SG: Before. It was in '98, I'm pretty sure. '98 or '99.
JI: So that was before the gallery, even.
SG: Oh yeah.
JI: What was the motivation to become a 501C3?
MM: Well, we were unclear about that as well. As were all the people either looking at our early grant proposals or even giving us-- I'm not sure why they gave us the not for profit status, to tell you the truth. I think, if you just have your paperwork in order, and you pay the fees, you basically get it. What we realized at a certain point is what the government is worried about is people setting up nonprofits to launder money, more or less and not pay taxes. There was no money going through, so nobody really cared. We ourselves thought that this would be the path to applying to all these wonderful grants and doing brilliant projects of an indeterminate sort. I mean, it was pretty damn vague. And at the time, we thought, well, maybe then we can get a grant to cut an album of Jay Braun-- You know, we just thought there was money, just magically out there, and once you had this status, you would send out some letters, and piles of cash would arrive, and you would do brilliant things with it. I mean, I'm teasing a little bit, but it was pretty naive. We were utterly naive as to how all of that worked and how it went. We were also convinced that the community was sort of interesting and special, and we didn't really want to be pushed to find why it was interesting or special, or why anyone else would give a shit, or think it was interesting or special. It was just sort of, it was self evident. Really I think we wanted nonprofit status just as confirmation of the fact that we were...something. That we should maybe even be paid to be this something.
JI: But your prophecies came true to a certain extent. Flux has applied for many, many grants and gotten to do lots of silly things with the money, so.
SG: That's for sure.
MM: Well, one of my operating principles at that time, which I still live according to, is that you can make anything true if you tell yourself that fact often enough, and repeat it enough. So, it was a self fulfilling prophecy at a certain point, and so at some point we simply said, "okay, we are this," and therefore we became it. And Jean also had a great affect on that, because he said, "well, we're also an important place for art exhibits." We had never done an art exhibit. We had no business making an art exhibit, but, there it was. And he had a great spirit for just saying-- I mean, I was just really intimidated by that side of things, because I was just like, "well, wait a second, people come here and actually look at this as a place that's supposed to do art exhibits, well, we'll be exposed," you know. But in fact, it was the right next thing to do, because it gave itself a focus it never had before, and then people could say, "okay. We can make these art projects, and that will be the way that there's an actual real manifestation of the illusive genius of Flux. And, in its own crazy way, it really did.
JI: I come from sort of a warped perspective, because the Flux I've known has been all artists. But I think there's something in Flux history that is of added value to have all different kinds of people living together and being a part of the art somehow Do you think that having people from craigslist randomly subletting in the summer, do you think that affected the artwork in some way?
MM: I would get frustrated sometimes, because we would get people in sometimes, through craigslist or wherever, who, it really wasn't clear why they were at Flux, other than it was relatively cheap rent and maybe a fun party. But looking back at it, looking past a lot of those people, some of whom, by the way, were perfectly fine and interesting people, and it's no big deal. I think there was something interesting about having people there who had a non-art perspective, who didn't see themselves as artists, didn't have artistic training, didn't have a dog in the fight, but often had very interesting things to say, or ideas about things, or even ideas about the way something should look, or should feel. And I think it was good to have
that mix. I think it brought something a little bit exciting and different. So much of Flux at that time, and even the art projects was about building things, and so, it got built up through so many different kinds of ideas and feelings about how something should look and feel, so, that was a big part of it actually. I'm not sure I recognized that so much as part of it at the time, as I do now, looking back at it.
JI: When was the weekly meeting part of life there? SG: I think Flux 2.
MM: Yeah, I think it was because we started to need more decisions because we had stuff happening a bit more. Shuffy at that time had decided she was going to be executive director. You know, we wanted her to be and she agreed to be executive director of this new organization, and then we realized that the house needed to make decisions and the institutional administration needed to make decisions and we started to figure out ways to have regular meetings. That was pretty early on in Flux 2. But we didn't want to lose the informality of things. Like, we always wanted to have the art shows be things that came from all of us just sitting around in the kitchen and having a big discussion and throwing ideas around and all of that. We wanted those meetings to kind of overlap each other, and for one thing to emerge organically out of the other. I don't know how well that always worked, but I think it kind of worked, all those kinds of decisions kind of did come out of discussions. And some people were more involved than others, but it was always open to the whole house.
JI: Shuffy, why did you decide to step up and take on this huge task of being executive director? What did that mean to you?
SG: I almost felt like maybe, if I became executive director of Flux Factory, which Flux had never had before, that somehow Flux would be able to be more serious and more of a real arts organization, and more of what I envisioned for it. I think that being executive director of Flux gave me a certain amount of control over the vision. Which I liked, but it also forced me in a position of being in too much control, and I feel that eventually my individual participation as an artist suffered, and I basically found it harder and harder with each year to have fun, and to just have that feeling of, "okay, we're just going to put on a show, and there's no consequences, and we don't really have to raise money, and we don't have to earn money and we're just going to do it, and it's going to be a lot of fun." But I think that went along with the increasing institutionalization of Flux that we both felt it was necessary for Flux to survive.That's always the give and take, and I think that my personal experience was very much encapsulates that progression.
JI: Did you experience any situations where you were poised in conflict with the rest of the collective, where you felt like something was really the way things should be done and you were in a position of power to make that decision, but...?
SG: Yeah, all the time. All the time. MM: She was drunk on her own power.
SG: I think probably, I'm not very familiar with the way the position of executive director is dealt with right now, but for me, because I was a Flux artist, I was living there, I was in a sense also kind of running the household, and I was the executive director of the nonprofit, so, all of those things, and I was kind of supposed to be people's friend, right? Because it was still supposed to be, like we were just a bunch of friends, putting on shows together for fun, right? And kind of like a family, so it was extremely difficult to balance all of those different relationships, not just with individual people, but even within myself. Like, "which person am I? Am I Stephanie the friend today? Am I Stephanie the executive director, am I Stephanie the
roommate?"
MM: And we wanted, we talked at that time about those things being blurry. That it shouldn't get too separated, because then it will get professionalized and we'll all do different things, and then we'll have conflict. You know we always thought that a kind of anarchy between those different branches was kind of a good thing. And we would describe Flux as an artist run institution for that very reason. You know, that we are doing all that stuff with people who have an artist mentality all the way through.
JI: So there's these three categories. There's Freaky Fresh, there's Mensa, and there's Bad Boys. Can you explain this?
SG: So, Mensas, so for instance, Morgan and I were Mensas, meaning that we were sort of the intellectual, more apt to be pretentious, more of the meta, the idea people.
MM: If you ever talked about a Flux project with reference to Kant or Hegel you were a Mensa person, if you ever were found around Flux without your pants on--
SG: Smoking pot--
MM: --you were Freaky Fresh.
SG: No, I wouldn't say that at all. With your pants off?
MM: Because you've misplaced them.
SG: No, no, I don't agree with this.
MM: And if you were at Flux more or less because you couldn't pay the rent anywhere else--
SG: And you couldn't pay the rent at Flux either--
MM: Then you were a bad boy.
SG: And the people who didn't fit in anywhere were Freaky Fresh.
MM: No, but Freaky Fresh was Alice Mary, the spirit of Alice Mary. Have you heard of her?
JI: No, tell me.
MM: Alice Mary was an Irish woman, who is now the daughter of the current president of Ireland, and ran his campaign to win the presidency. And she became friends with us through the New School. She was getting a PhD in Sociology at the time. Alice Mary was the sort of person who would-- she was at a wedding one time, and they had been up all night, and they were standing out in the desert at some point, and she looked out and she saw that there was just a beautiful sunset and she said, "let's go, we must run, we must run into the sunset," and she convinced everyone with no shoes on or anything else, to run out into the desert, which was, of course, filled with cactuses. So they run a few hundred yards out and all of a sudden they're filled, they've got quills everywhere, and all of a sudden she's falling down, and she's trying to pull quills out but then she's getting them on her ass, and then falling down and she's crying but she's laughing--
SG: And she then lost her passport in the desert.
MM: Right, and she lost her passport, and then one of her boyfriends had to find a way to get her paperwork done, and then it was all in a pile, and then she set fire to her room
accidentally, which then gave her a brilliant idea because it looked wonderful, and she took pictures of it, which everyone loved. That's Alice Mary, and that's the spirit of Freaky Fresh. She was a very special lady.
JEAN BARBERIS
Jean Barberis lived at Flux Factory for twelve years, and saw the collective through two evictions. He is the founder of the gallery space, and one of the consistent curators generating shows with Flux. His curatorial and artistic projects are characterized by playfulness, openness, collaboration, and a sense of the realizing the implausible.
JI: Can you give me an introduction to who you are and what your involvement with Flux has been over the years?
JB: Sure. My name is Jean Barberis. I'm an artist and a curator. I was involved with Flux factory for twelve years. I've had many different roles over the years, but I think most importantly, I started the gallery program. I started curating shows in I think, March of 2002, and that's how Flux Factory became and art space, more or less. I moved there on September 26th, 2000, and, so, I'm one of the few people that were involved in all three spaces.
JI: When you founded the gallery, how did that change flux?
JB: Up until the point we moved, we had this kind of dynamic, but didn't have much of a cultural identity. When we moved to the second place there was this big open space that was fit for doing lots of different things. I was also involved in starting the arts collective, which is kind of different. That happened when the Queens Museum contacted us to be part of their show, which is kind of weird when you think about it because, we had just moved to Queens. We had had one show in the gallery, but we had never done anything as an arts collective. But then the Queens Museum courted us, came for a visit, and then asked us to propose something for the Queens International show that they were doing. And so, we did When Everybody Agrees it Means Nobody Understood, which was this big installation at the museum where Fluxers were living at the museum for three months and building this sort of structure that was self-documenting and that was supposed to provide space for various performances and stuff, which it did. But it was also kind of a way for us to burrow into the walls of the museum and have all these secret installations and interventions. I mean, that was not the original intent, but it just so happened that we were spending so much time at the museum and nobody was coming through, so we were just really bored of doing what we were doing, so we quickly expanded. In a way that experience has really shaped Flux's aesthetic and approach to art and to institutions. That was a very important moment in Flux history, I think.
JI: Can you talk a little about the extended community of Flux?
JB: Flux has had a longstanding relationship and collaboration with former residents, people like Kerry Downey, or people who have never lived at Flux, but who have been involved since we've been doing projects, like Daupo, but also, former residents [The Infamous Outpost project in Denmark] was a good example of that, where we had former residents coming from all over the place. We had Alex Young coming from Upstate New York, Alex Wolkowitz coming from Manchester, Liverpool, we had Wieteke and Richie coming from Holland, we had Tom coming from Manchester. So, I think there's a really vast network we can call upon.
JI: I want to talk a little bit about Flux ethics. You mentioned meals, I mean, I don't know if eating is an ethic really, but it seems to be one of the main things that ties Fluxers together.
JB: It's so simple, but it's such a big part of what we do and how we communicate, and how we socialize as a group. I mean, I remember when I visited Jason [Eppink] at Wonderland, which used to be a big space, in many ways comparative to Flux in size and in sort of what they were trying to do. I visited the place, and I was like, so, where do you guys eat? There was this tiny little kitchen and a small table that could fit like four people, and he was just like, "oh, we just cook for ourselves and we eat right there, or, wherever," and I was like, "really?" because Jason was telling me about the place and he was telling me that they lacked like a sense of cohesion, and I was like, "well, of course. Of course it doesn't work, because you guys don't eat together. For me it was like this obvious thing. So, it's a very important part. I mean, we have so many different people coming from so many different backgrounds, so many different cultures, and the one thing we have in common is food. You know everyone eats. It's a good way to be together.
JI: Can you describe some of the characteristics of Fluxiness?
JB: I feel like there's something a little bit cheeky about it. I mean, it's kind of hard to put your finger on it, but, I feel like the Grand Pram Slam was kind of a great example of Flux Factory's collective at it's best. It's like this huge chaotic thing that made the best of people's abilities and created a huge event out of nothing, out of like 5 baby carriages and a bunch of hot pants, basically. That's all it took. I feel like there's this sense of trying to accomplish very ambitious works with very little means, and being extremely crafty."Good Enough," was sort of our official motto, which for me, was never really a commitment to poor craftsmanship, but kind of like the idea that we're never going to have all the resources to do everything we want to do, but that shouldn't stop us, so, if we can make it good enough, we can still make it.
CHEN TAMIR
Chen Tamir is a curator and cultural practitioner based in Tel Aviv. She first came to Flux in 2006, and became executive director of Flux Factory in 2008, just in time to see Flux through it's second eviction.
Jaime Iglehart: How did you get involved with Flux and what it was like when you got there?
Chen Tamir: I moved in to Flux in October, 2006. I was in my second year of my MA in Curatorial Studies at Bard. I found a listing on Craigslist for some art collective I'd never heard of. I was like, "oh, I'd love to live with a bunch of art people," but I was also a little suspicious. I wrote an email introducing myself, and Kerry Downey, who was on the roommate committee, or the housing committee, answered me and invited me for an interview. I stayed there for hours, they didn't ask me to leave, and then at 10:30 at night I needed to go. There were a bunch of people who had come and gone for interviews, and I found out later that during the interview process if one of the Fluxers interviewing you didn't like you, they would ask you to leave, but if nobody had any objections, then you would just stay as long as you wanted.
JI: It seems like Flux two is really where the art collective began, and the more formalized art practice in general. Where was Flux in that transition when you arrived?
CT: Flux was well into the transition. By the time I came, they had already done both projects at the Queens Museum. Morgan and Stephany were running the ship. It was run like a nonprofit organization. We had gotten grants, we had I think by then gotten the Andy Warhol
foundation grant that made a huge difference to us. So, it had taken shape as a collective, what I would call an open collective, where, members of the collective always changed, or there was a sort of a fluid structure.
JI: When Morgan talked about the beginning of the residency program, he said that, before it was a residency program, every time a room would open up, people would be like, "oh, we should get an awesome artist," but it was difficult to organize that, and then Flux would wind up with a someone who wasn't really involved. How did the residency program develop from your perspective, and what was it like for you to shape that?
CT: I think we spoke about it vaguely at Flux two, it was the idea of creating a residency program, but I don't think it ever got off the ground because I think Morgan and Stephany could barely run the bare bones of Flux, and they were really strung out. And it also just seemed pretty unrealistic for a place like that, basically just a squat, to get money from foreign governments to fund somebody's stay at such an institution. I don't think they had enough of a history in the art world to be taken seriously.
JI: How did you decide you wanted to be the Executive Director?
CT: Somewhere along the line it became clear that we would have to leave the building. And when the end was really clear, Shuffy took Jean and me to bubble tea in Sunnyside and told us what was happening and that she and Morgan don't have the energy to start another Flux, so either we close it, or we find someone else to run it. And the thought of closing Flux seemed so sad to me. I had nothing else to do, so, I took it on, never having run an institution before, but seeming to be the most qualified person around for the job. September 15th 2008 is when I became Director. I took over from Shuffy. I think Morgan spent ten minutes showing me how to bookkeep and run all the expenses, and Shuffy showed me a bit more about stuff, and that's it. And we moved out in October, a month later from the building, so I was basically tasked with getting Flux through this transition. I had to deal with not just running an entire institution, but basically, the MTA had contracted a kind of company that evicts people. It was just a really crazy environment, the last two months. I can't even describe it. Ian Montgomery and Adrian Owen and a bunch of other people made a giant hole in the gallery ceiling and built huts on the roof for themselves [Shantytown] because it was like apocalypse or the end of days. It was a free-for-all at Flux for a couple of months. Nothing was getting fixed, but also people were just destroying stuff at Flux because it was fun I guess.
The last show we did was "Everything Must Go", where people could just take things from Flux, but up on the roof, they had built a shanty town. They had taken all the wood palettes that were down in the parking garage and just used scrap wood to build their own rooms. It was like the perfect Flux exhibition, except, at some point the fire department came, and they busted in and were like, "you have to clear this within 24 hours or you're going to be vacated.” So, we had 24 hours to take the whole thing down. We're talking about a lot of wood. It filled up the entire gallery, it was a mess. And then, a few weeks later, the place had to be completely empty, like swept through empty. I didn't know how to make it happen. Flux couldn't get itself organized. I was relying on Jean to do it, but I think in the last week or two it was just too much pressure, so we hired a dumpster, and then we had to pay thousands of dollars to get the dumpsters taken.
JI: And what was the vision for the residency program at that point?
The idea wasn't to create a residency program so that it could be funded. It could be funded in the future, but mostly it was to give an administrative structure to that part of it, because, you know, Craiglisting everything all the time was so random to me. I wanted to invest in choosing people that could really take advantage of the resources that Flux could offer, and who could be engaged in the community and art creation.
After we had vacated Queens two, I had asked Sarah Hines to help me with development because I had no idea how the hell to get money. I had no idea how to write grants, and who do you write grants to. So she helped in the first year, and, as things were gearing up-- we had found a building. We signed a lease for $100,000 a year, I was freaking out, and we just did it.
For the first six months it was really difficult. We had used up all our money. We got $70,000 for our eviction from the first place, and that went into the renovation. That is how much it cost to renovate it on the cheap. I mean, really on the cheap. Basically all the material we had gotten Shalin had helped find from film sets and all these businesses going broke because of the market crash in the fall of 2008.
So we put a call out and we had I think thirty applications, very few. Not everybody was awesome, but we somehow filled the rooms. And they moved in. There was no money, and we also didn't get grants because people, like the Queens Council for the Arts thought we had no future (and they themselves didn't have much money either). So they didn't give us any money that year. Our grant from the NY State Council on the Arts that we were awarded was taken away because of massive state budget cuts to the arts. We were literally on the line. There was zero money, so at the end of the month, when we would have to pay rent, the rent from each of the rooms was supposed to make up the rent for the whole building. For every month. But if one person didn't pay their rent on time, our check to our landlord would bounce. It was a difference of less than $300. There was no money. And I would just cry. At the end of every month, I would be so freaked out. It was really tough.
I always talk about Flux as two contradictory systems operating in parallel, in symbiosis with one another. One is a collective of people with no hierarchy, and it's very informal. Another is a nonprofit organization with a very clear hierarchical system of authority and division of labor, and by-laws and boards, etc. So, I found myself being in this position of being the director and leader amongst a group of peers, mostly men, plus Georgia. It was a time of heightened stress because, it wasn't legal for us to live in the building, it's not zoned residential.
At some point my friend Elaine Bowen approached me. She was a development director, she does fundraising. She sat down with me and basically convinced me to hire her as a consultant. She was amazing. She was totally incredible. It makes me really value the work of development and fundraising because it's such an important and special skill. She helped me put together a much more expanded fundraising plan, and she also help us with the auction that year. We had done auctions every single year, they were fine, usually they were held at the Hungarian Culture Center, but we could never sell much because we didn't have enough access to people who buy stuff. It was mostly our friends buying artwork to do us a favor, but we were always left with all this artwork, because we didn't know how to sell anything.
Elaine really helped strategize the auction. There was a lot of magic happening, also, because we had just reopened and there was a lot of buzz around us, and we had new energy, new blood and an expanded network. She suggested we make a committee. You make a committee and you ask them to sell the tickets, and they're on it because they see other people's names on it, so it's this whole name dropping thing and everybody gets on board. So that's what we did. We asked a bunch of gallerists, and the gallerists do it because they think it's good for their exposure and better for their artists, and for them, and different rich people. Elizabeth Dee and her director, Jayne Drost, were involved thanks to Nick Griffin and that made a huge difference, we did it in their big Chelsea space, and they helped draw a crowd. And it went really well. We made, I think over $25,000. And so 2010 was really the year of stabilizing. 2009 was the hellish transition and 2010 was wonderful. We got an Andy Warhol Foundation grant again. That was basically the highlight of my career. We had gotten money from DCA, NYSCA, some other foundations, it was great. And by then, when the call
for residents went out, it seemed more and more feasible for international residents to come who could afford it. And so we developed that more.
JI: So, after seeing Flux through this transition, and bringing it to a stable place, why did you decide to leave?
CT: Basically, by 2011 I was so tired, but also I had accomplished what I wanted to do, which was get Flux to a stable place. Where it could run without me. But I was really just totally burnt out. I was paying myself, but not enough to live. I was working two days a week at Flux, two days a week at ArtIs, and one day a week as an independent curator working on some big shows, mostly in Israel. But it basically meant that I was working seven days a week, under lots of pressure, for a long, long time. And, I was tired but I was also just tired of the fighting, the groveling, the stress of it all. By the time I realized I had to leave, the situation had drastically changed in terms of money. We were in a much more stable place by the beginning of 2011. There were a lot of structural changes coming to Flux, mostly in terms of the money and how we would fundraise and how we would pay people and what we needed to grow. It became clear that finally, there would be a salary for the director, for one full time employee there would be a living wage, or close to that, but I just couldn't do it.
JI: What do you ultimately take away from your experience with Flux?
CT: Flux really anchored me. It sounds like it should be the opposite, because it's this place of Flux, place of change, and everything is so on the wire and so unstable, but actually it really grounded me socially and professionally. All my friends from Bard were not really the friends I hung out with or who helped me in any way. My friends at Flux were the ones who got me jobs, who gave me opportunities to curate, who hung out with me, who I cried to when I was unhappy, who taught me so much. Annie taught me how to drive stick. Kerry taught me how to talk about my feelings, Doug taught me how to love. It taught me how to be a human being. How to be a productive, happy human being.
Flux is personal, you know. That's sort of what I consider the beautiful thing about these art collectives, but about Flux, especially. It's sort of the opposite of bourgeois. Bourgeois is to divide your home and your work, and that's what our mainstream capitalist society is made of. And when you combine your work and your life and your social life and your love life, and your intellectual life and your cultural life, everything is intertwined. That's kind of the beauty of it. The divisions in your life lesson, and your horizon becomes much wider and clearer. You grow and you define yourself against those people, and against the frameworks that we build together, so the structure, all of us holding up this framework, is how you grow. We're all building this tent, or structure, almost architecturally, not just a building but a metaphor for the confines and limitations, but also the shelter and the shape of our own projects and our own community and stuff like that. And that's what we are nurtured in. We grow within and against the shape of this thing we build together.
GEORGIA MEUNSTER
Georgia Meunster is an artist and curator, and baker extraordinaire. Her practice involves dual strands of urban exploration and large scale immersive installation. She is the current curatorial fellow at Flux Factory.
Jaime Iglehart: Can you tell me how you first came to Flux?
Georgia Meunster: I came to Flux Factory in August 2008, as an intern. I saw an open call on NYFA and it was looking for people interested in helping the organization, helping with events, helping them move, and so I answered, and they said YES, and that's how it all got started. It was the Apocalypse at Flux, they were going to be evicted on October 31st, and the space was a total dump, and it was insane. It was bonkers.
JI: What did you think, when you came into this as an intern, and there was this Chaos? What were your impressions?
GM: It was super weird. When I first arrived, the doorbell wasn't working, but I managed to sneak in. The door wasn't locked, but I could tell it was supposed to be. And so I walked right into the building, and up these stairs, and through these dark halls, where everything was broken, and, you know, holes in the wall, and boxes of stuff everywhere. It was an odd first impression. I thought the place was just full of crazy anarchists or something. I was kind of thirsting for that environment. I had been working at a Chelsea gallery and it was really horrible. This was the complete opposite.
JI: So, when did you start curating?
GM: My first show, I did with Jean. It was Housebroken. The first major exhibition at this new space. So, that would have been 2009. I was helping with the organization, like, "this artists needs an electrical socket here, this artist needs yarn," And Jean told me that what I was doing was curating, and that I should be listed as a curator. And I said, "oh, okayyyy."
JI: That's awesome.
GM: Yeah. He was right. I guess it's something that never quite would have occurred to me otherwise.
JI: One of the things I'm trying to nail down is how the Admin has changed over the years. So, right now, how many people are on Admin?
GM: There are six of us on paid staff and three interns.
JI: Is everyone paid the same amount?
GM: Nooooo. We are not. That is something that has definitely changed over time. It used to be more transparent, how much everybody was paid. Chen would hand out pieces of paper describing everyone's jobs down to the minutest detail. And now, I don't actually know how much my coworkers get paid, cause it's kind of a secret and I never really pushed the issue.
JI: I sent an email asking for that info and I haven't heard back.
GM: You haven't heard. Interesting. Huh.
JI: It seems like not very open information, and I don't know why.
GM: Hmm. Let's do a little google search. This information is totally available because we're a nonprof i t.
JI: I'm getting some numbers from Jean and Chen from back in the day at Flux 2, and apparently, at one point back in the day, Jean wasn't paying any rent and he was making $500 a month, which is pretty great.
GM: Yeah, that sounds about right. That's dreamy. Flux 2 was somehow much more flush than Flux 3. I don't really understand it. I don't know if the grants have run dry, or what exactly, but. I'm paid $150 a month, plus whatever I pay myself for projects, which can totally vary. Like, I paid myself $450 for the wonder cabinet, which is abysmally low for the level of work that it was, but, since our exhibitions budget was so slim, it was really proportionate. Whereas my rent is $668 plus utilities. It's gone up. My rent was in the 400s when I first moved in.
JI: I feel like it's so clear how gentrification has changed the structure, and even the basic operation of Flux.
GM: Totally. Yes.
JI: It's kind of amazing, actually.
GM: It's hard to see until you step out of the box and look at it, but, yeah, you're very right.
PHUC LE
Phuc Le is an artist based in California and New York City. He is one of the six recipients of the NYCT grant, which provides funding for housing at Flux Factory for artists under 30 who come from under-represented backgrounds.
Jaime Iglehart: Had you lived collectively before you came to Flux?
Phuc Le: Before this, I was living in a space that's kind of communal, but it wasn't like this. I'm glad this was my first experience, because I really couldn't ask for anything better. I know there's some downside to things at times, but overall it's been very amazing, very positive. I've actually been wishing for something like this my whole life. Being in a group living situation, where everyone is active, passionate about something. It really it motivates you to do things, too.
JI: You're here with NYCT grant, right? What was that like for you?
PL: That was really amazing for me. More than anything that I could ever ask for, to live in New York City, not have to worry about finance, to focus on art-making. For me, it was...every day I wake up, and I know I have been given the biggest gift I could ever ask for. I mean, I truly appreciate it so much. Sometimes I do feel bad that not everyone is on that free ride situation...That's one thing I would like to talk about, is how this place kind of breaks up into the American group and the European group, and most of the Europeans are here on some sort of grant, and the Americans are here on their own pocket money. I know most of us don't come from rich families, so for me to come here on this situation, I'm really happy and ecstatic for myself and my experience, but then, I don't feel good when I know some people have to work harder to sustain their situation, and because they work harder they have less time to focus on artwork.
JI: How would you describe the structure of decision-making at Flux?
PL: There's three main groups. There's the board members. There's the Admin team, and the community. But, within the community there's also permanent residents, long term residents and short term residents. The board, they're kind of disconnected with the residents. So, the admin team is like the link between the residents and the board. And, there's always this battle, it seems, between the house and the admin, which, I'm not sure if it's even tangible, or if it's just something used as an excuse sometimes...for things the whole community can't figure out. That seems like the fallback thing to run to. "oh, we can't figure anything out. It must be this thing between the house and the admin. And I don't think it has to be that way.
JI: You were sort of touching on this when you were talking about the European vs. American groups, is this dynamic that happens with so many new people coming through, where the long term people kind of become the caretakers of the place.
PL: I think it's really exhausting and unfair for the long term residents. It's really unfair, and, I think they are amazing for putting up with it. They have to have so much heart to be able to do this, because, you know, it's give and take, and the people who are coming in for one or two months are taking everything, and the people who are here long term are giving everything. And they have to give so much to every person that comes through, and it's really exhausting. I've only been here for seven months and I've already begun to feel that exhaustion. By my third wave of people, I was getting burnt out, because...you invest a lot, and everyone that comes in, they leave, with all the knowledge and the experience, and you get left feeling like you're spent. And then, there's no time to rest because a new wave comes in, and, not that you're forced to do it. Well, you're kind of forced to do it, but then you also do it because you're a good person, and you want good for the community but-- you're in the worst situation. You put in the most work, emotionally, you don't get paid, and you have to pay for your own living situation here. So. But that being said, the experience you get is totally worth it, right? Otherwise we wouldn't be here, because we do connect with each other, and I think that's invaluable.
JI: I think that's one of the most valuable lessons that Flux is going through right now and might be able to come out on the end having to show something for it.
PL: So, it hasn't always been this way?
JI: No, no. When I moved in, it was under the assumption that we were all a collective, just living together.
PL: So, in a certain sense, I'm kind of like, the product of the decision of change at Flux. How you were saying, before, that, "oh, we're just a permanent collective," but then there was this change that happened. I think, I'm kind of like- I'm part of the change.
JI: Do you think Flux is a safe space in that it's explicitly anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti- homophobic, or is it --I mean, is it?
PL: It is a safe place. I think you have, overall a very open and understanding group of people. I have not felt unsafe here before. Being gay, being non-white. I feel pretty safe here. I think, that's why I'm very happy to have found this community because, a lot of things that are hard for me to function as a human being in the greater sense of society I feel kind of normal here.
ANGELA WASHKO
Angela Washko is an artist and curator based in New York City. Since 2010 the has participated in Flux Factory as a collective member, a community member, and a member of the staff.
Jaime Iglehart: I'm curious how you came to Flux.
Angela Washko: I came to Flux in 2010. I applied in 2009 because Jeff Stark, who was on the advisory board at Flux, and a good friend of lots of people at Flux said, "you should move to New York City, and you should be involved in this collective," and I was like, "oh, this is an artist's residency," and he was like, "no it's not," and I was like, "but it says that it is." And he was like, "oh, well, it's a collective." And that was how I wound up being interested in it, and applying and going there. I went through I think one of the very early rounds of the formal application process.
JI: When you came did you find it to be true that it was a collective, and not a residency program, or, what was your experience?
AW: I came at a time where it was trying to figure out how much they wanted to go in the direction of this so-called professionalizing, and becoming like other residency programs and how much everyone wanted to hold on to the collective and other experimental aspects of the residency which made it different, and maybe a little more interesting than other residencies that were available. I did three consecutive residencies before I went to Flux. Immediately, I was like, "woah, my room is a mess. There's a bed on the floor and a lot of trash and some holes in the wall." I was like, "woah, this is crazy." But after a week of being there, and getting a feel for how things work and some of the more collective, the more participatory meeting and planning sort of things, and the work days, that kind of stuff stopped bothering me, because I thought that it was interesting, that as a resident I was asked to participate in this democratic decision-making process about the future of the program and the collective. Over the three years I was there, I think that it feels less and less like things are done collectively, or fewer of the decisions are made collectively. Focus shifted less on resident driven projects, to the four major shows, and then a few curated programs, which were really nice, but something about it was very solidly planned and curated, and safe in a way, I guess, and it felt like there was less room to ask questions about the future of Flux.
JI: How was your experience with Flux in general? How would you characterize it in terms of your development?
AW: Flux was super important in my development as an artist in the last several years. I was really lucky to be able to even get picked to go, actually. In reviewing incoming residents, like any resident does at Flux, you realize how many people are vying for your room. Like there's the fourteen rooms, and if you're reviewing a hundred people, for me that made it feel pretty significant, that I got there in the first place. Flux was great because you get there, and you get introduced to fourteen people just to start, the people that you're going to be living with, and then also whoever else is on staff, maybe another seven people, and then all the extended community members and former residents that come to all the events. And then you get to share at Flux Thursday about your work, so then there's an audience that's plugged in to what you're doing. It's so nice to come to a new place and automatically have people to talk to about what you're doing, and feel like you're part of something besides hiding in a studio and being like, "I make stuff," and not really having an audience for it, or knowing how to respond to where you are. So, Flux was really amazing for that.
JI: I'm trying to get the data about how the money is actually distributed, because, Flux never had an Admin until they had money. So it's sort of like, the money kind of shaped how it evolved.
AW: Good luck on that front. It's a touchy subject. I think money has impacted Flux a lot. It impacts everyone there differently. Some residents' rooms and production costs are funded by cultural institutions from the countries they come from outside the US. Most American residents pay out-of-pocket and one way that Flux used to help those residents pay for their stay was by being a part of the staff. I did this for one year as the residency coordinator. But this seems to be less of an option now as the staff structure seems much less fluid than it used to be. This is perhaps also why programming is much more solidly structured as well. It used to be that when there was a need expressed, a position would be developed and a resident would be hired, and make a tiny amount of money, as all of us on staff used to. When there were more residents involved in the administration there were a lot more people discussing how money would be used and distributed. As fewer people are involved in those conversations- resources become more abstract at Flux. But I think it's unnecessary. If people knew where money was going from the auction, such as to programming or lowering costs of residencies, there would be more of an investment in participating and more effort at the resident level in fundraising and also in learning about how Flux operates. But I hope you can get into some of this stuff, it will be interesting to see.
JI: I was talking to Phuc at one point, and he pointed out how unfair the situation is at this point because a lot of the work gets put on to the community members, or the American residents, who are around longer, and they're working a ton of hours and not getting paid, and paying for their room.
AW: Yeah, that's absolutely true. I never thought about it that way. Yeah, it's some kind of barter for work, but they still have to pay the rent. That's pretty rough. It's like a barter for cultural capital or something. Like, you get to participate in this cool place, and sometimes you might get to curate something, or be involved in a creative way, but you also still have to pay, and when shit goes down, you know, like the leaky roof or whatever, it's up to you to fix it. Or the "Shit-uation," where you're shoveling shit out of the drain. Yeah, no, that's a really good point.
JI: What do you hope for Flux's future at this point?
AW: I feel like Flux is in a somewhat weird half-assed place, where it's trying really hard to reach out to certain writers, and get noticed by certain blogs, like ArtFagCity, or
make things that are sort of posturing moves, towards certain cool people with a lot of cultural capital. For example, including people who talk a lot on twitter in certain panels, and I wonder if it's that interesting to reinforce that popularity contest? Though I think Doug does a great job of reaching out to more critically engaged artists and activists. I miss the weird randomness that Flux had before. If Flux is going to change, and it's going to professionalize as a residency to be more like standard residencies, then I think they need to be able to offer the support to residents that other residencies offer. Flux needs to fundraise for more of the rooms, to bring down costs and reach artists that can afford it. If they are going to ask people to pay, then they need to bring down costs. I think, if it's going to go in this direction of "professionalization", which I don't think that it necessarily should, but it certainly is the direction that it looks to be going, than Flux should focus on improving that stuff. Right now it's banking on the fact that's in New York, and that right now the other residencies in New York, for the most part, are extremely competitive and designed for more established artists. ISCP, Location One – Flux doesn't really compete in the same leagues that they do, Flux is accessible to unusual experimental practices and younger more emerging artists - which is exciting. But it just doesn't offer the studio visits, well-attended prestigious talks with Martha Rosler, big-deal open-studio events etc. Flux isn't doing that kind of networky stuff, which I think is awesome in its own way as it offers a much different DIY experience, but, if it's trying to place itself in the same sphere as that kind of place, it needs to offer that kind of stuff. So, in my ideal Flux, it gives up some of the desire to be that kind of place, and really embraces the more fucked up things, the more participatory elements, and the more collaborative, collective, experimental nature of the place in a more fully, full-on kind of way, instead of this just like, "yeah, we're meeting all your needs,” hahaha, no we're not, sorry, oops!" And the constant feeling that your head is just above water. Instead my ideal Flux says to complaints about the lack of "networking" and gallery contacts: "no, we don't do that. Sorry. We can set you up with an intelligent and challenging curator, but I'm sorry they aren't curating the Whitney Biennial. There are other places to get that kind of thing, and we can point you in that direction if you're interested. Also here are the valuable things we do offer and a bunch of like-minded people for you to meet."
JASON EPPINK
Jason Eppink is an artist based in New York City and the Assistant Curator of Digital Media at the Museum of the Moving Image in Long Island City, Queens. He came to Flux in 2010, and is currently a community resident.
Jaime Iglehart: What was your first encounter with Flux, and how did you wind up living there?
Jason Eppink: I had been seeing it in the nonsense email list for a while and I think the first time I went, Rannjit Bhatnavar (?) was doing a whistle workshop, but the first real great experience I had was Going Places Doing Stuff. I wouldn't say that I made fast friends with any of those guys, in fact, I would say that Flux was a clique that was hard to break into, or it felt that way.
JI: At this point you were still living at Wonderland, right? JE: Yeah.
JI: How did Wonderland compare to Flux at that time?
JE: I mean, it didn't. Wonderland was...more sort of a communal living space, than a space really dedicated to creativity. Certainly there were people who were organizing, like, figure drawing...or community art show type things. Mainly though it was more of a party space. No one there was very interested in working together collectively.
JI: At what point did you decide that you wanted to apply for community resident-ship?
JE: I didn't want a deadline, or an end date to my time at Flux. I always sort of just wanted to hang around for a while. So, as soon as I knew what the community resident thing was, I was like, "yes, I want to be part of it." Cause my intention was always sort of to be there for a while.
JI: What do you think about the whole idea of community residents?
JE: It just seems like it's coming at solving a problem from a different perspective. It's coming at solving problems of continuity and institutional memory from a perspective of an artist's residency, rather than coming from the perspective of a collective, and solving the problem of an artist's residency. It seems like it's just coming from a different perspective from what I came to Flux expecting, which was a group of people who live together for a while and make cool things, rather than like what the board and people who run the administration see it to be.
JI: I'm trying to understand where Flux is at now. I left right around when Chen was leaving, and, it seems like, from the brief time I was back, there's a lot less participation in general with group decisions.
JE: I mean, yeah. There's been a centralization of power. For better or for worse.
JI: Is that a problem?
JE: Sure. Yeah, I think so....There's a specific conversation I remember. We had this house meeting and we were talking about what our fiscal plans were, or what our ideas for fundraising were. And we were like, "We're a collective. We should all have a voice in that." And Christina was really resistant about it, and finally said, "okay, fine, I'll send the budget to you," and then never sent it. She was like, "it's sensitive information." And we were like, "what? why are we not involved in that sensitive information?" I mean, she went to NYU for nonprofit administration. And NYU doesn't prepare you for herding fifteen cats. The tax structure is not set up for collectives, and all this sort of stuff. Collective groups are not efficient ways to make decisions, and all the laws require a certain structure. So, she's working within a system. And then there's these expectations from the board. As I understand it, the board wants this structure and this sort of legitimization as well. They have something at stake. they want to see this formal thing. Not all of it, but you know. And there's some really powerful people on that board. But to answer your question, "Is that a problem?" I think it's a problem if we value collective decision-making. And that's why I'm part of it. I'm willing to compromise on centralizing power to some extent, to allow us to efficiently take care of some things so we can do the other things that we want to do, but there's a tension there, about transparency. And, why do we need to be transparent? Is that an issue of efficiency? That it allows people to make better, faster decisions? Or, why? Why is that? I think more transparency is always better.
JI: Do you think these administrative changes have shown through in the artwork that's been coming out of Flux in the past two years?
JE: I think there is definitely a tension in talking about, what are the creative things that we do. I'm super interested in collective projects, and things that, who cares if they're art, if they're fun and creative and wacky. That's sort of why I came to Flux, because I liked Going Places Doing Stuff, I wish I could have seen Flux Box, I liked New York, New York, New York, and I liked Shanty Town on top of Flux 2. All of that stuff just blew my mind, that there were people investing their time and energy making that cool stuff. I didn't give a shit about things in white boxes and I still don't give a shit about things in white boxes. So I'm always a voice at Flux for those sorts of things.
I think there's this push and pull, and often it's the old school Fluxers who are the ones who are advocates for transforming the gallery and doing these immersive things, in or out of the gallery, and the new people who come in--sort of, the new people who come in through the residency program, come in and are expecting to put their precious objects in a white box gallery, and this really traditional, commodified version of what culture is. So, I don't know if it's changed any. I think quality has probably gotten better, the quality of things, both with that old model and with creative collective stuff, both have gotten better. I don't know if it's changed, though. I think there's an alignment of sides or something, where, people who have been there a while sort of have the memory of Flux doing these big crazy projects and advocates for that, and then they sort of hit up against this traditional version.
JI: But then there are those who come and just fall in love, and we fall in love with them.
JE: Totally. No, I agree. There's been some amazing success stories. But, they are the still the minority. And, I think we're getting better at sort of expressing who we are, and what to expect, but still, the majority of people who come, I think are expecting something different.
JI: A friend of mine has this theory of communal spaces and squats in particular as being these sorts of Deleuzian Nomadic War Machines, meaning that the interchangeability of them, and turnover of people in them, and the constantly changing desires sort of evades capitalism, and it creates things that cannot be captured. Is Flux that kind of space that is really, actually subverting this capitalist model, or is it just being consumed by it and replicating it?
JE: I think we're in this space where it's transitioning to the latter. I hesitate say what it was
when I wasn't there. My impression of it was it was, how you described that really well, as something subverting capitalism. But, I don't know. There was always this idea of selling art before I arrived, so maybe it wasn't as much in opposition to that as I thought it was. But I think it's certainly moving, becoming more capitalized. I mean the auction is such an emphasis on that. There's always talk about how to commodify what we do. We did this iron chef thing, and it was this weird fundraiser, and then at Flux Thursday, Christina had this thing where we sell valentine's cards as a fundraiser. It's actually really weird how it's getting commodif ied.
JI: It seems to me like there's tension between commodifying to survive and selling out. We talk about wanting to bring down the costs of living at Flux so that long term residents as well as the European artists can afford to live at Flux. So that's going to involve fundraising, given the circumstances that we're in. So that's one thing, and then there's also like-- reaching out to certain people who write on twitter, and certain blogs to kind of become this legitimized space. And I think, the AT&T funding...I'm not sure how that plays into that. I guess it's a gray area.
JE: I think survival is not black and white. This is the thing it's sort of like-- I don't know how to fight this language, or respond to this language, where someone says "we have to do this, or we will not exist anymore. That's rarely true. It's the same language as like, "I need to do something, or I need you to do something." Like, how do you rationally oppose that? I remember in the talks about the AT&T thing, someone said something to the effect like, if we don't take this money, then we will not be able to exist as an institution anymore because this money is vital to our operating budget, and if we don't fill that then we cease to exist. Not having a budget in front of me, I couldn't point to anything and say, "well, if we cut this this and this," we'd be able to survive. But I think sort of assumed in that mind frame, is that if we shrink, we're failing, or if we're static we're failing. The only success is growth. And that is sort of at the root of capitalism. It's an assumption that's made, that modern society is founded on, and it just makes no sense to me. So even sort of this needing money to survive thing, it's not black and white to me. It's like, we need money to survive for this model of what you see this is to survive, not to survive as an institution. It's like, what are our costs that are absolutely necessary, and what are our costs that are not? And what role do we as a collective have in deciding that, inside of this weird structure. This weird nonprofit structure that we have, that we have to have for tax purposes. So I think the selling out part is a part of the survival part. Like, for whatever reason we invite Patty Johnson from ArtFagCity and it's like, "why?" what does she have to do with us? I don't think her blog really relates to us at all, but it legitimizes us. And therefore we get more people looking at us who will give us money. and it's sort of a long term goal to be legitimized and attract more attention and fundraise later.
JI: But, to play devil's advocate, the more money and attention that comes to Flux, the more likely we are to be able to do what we love for a living. Right?
JE: So that's another assumption that I'm really resistant to. And, honestly, it's because I have a job that I like, so I'm not in this position where I'm trying to make a living off my projects, but also, I wouldn't want to. If I were to make a living off of what I do rather than to do it for fun, it would drastically change what I do. And I know that Doug has this language about how part of our goal is to help further people's art careers. And that was a shock to me. I was like, "that's why people are here? People are here to learn how to be professional artists? That had not occurred to me at all. And I'm always surprised when the end game is to make a living off of their creative output. Because I think that model is a pyramid scheme in our current economic environment. Not everyone that wants to make a living off of their creative output is going to be able to do that. I don't think that's winning. I don't think the only way you win is if you are a professional cultural producer.
JI: Okay but, you are lucky. You're in in a position where you're in a sense, from my perspective, you are making a living off of your creativity because of the work you've done in
the past, and therefore you have a job at this museum. So you're lucky. You're in a position where you can say that you don't want to do that but, you kind of are. For a lot of people, when we get the opportunity to get some money to do what we want-- it's like, “yes, absolutely. I want to make money off of what I love to do. Definitely.” I'd much rather do that than something else, right?
JE: No, yeah. I totally agree.