Back to the Present: Fifty Years of Free Expression with Franklin Furnace

A 50th-anniversary celebration of the legendary arts institution Franklin Furnace.This visually rich volume captures five decades of boundary-breaking art and the ongoing fight to defend creative freedom. In 1976, at a time when experimental art struggled to find institutional support, artist Martha Wilson founded Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc. in downtown Manhattan. What began as an artist-run space devoted to serving emerging artists and their overlooked work quickly became one of the most vital platforms for avant-garde art in the United States. As Franklin Furnace celebrates its fiftieth year, this landmark volume traces its extraordinary impact-from the gritty energy of the downtown ’70s art scene through the culture wars of the ’80s and ’90s and into today’s renewed debates around censorship, free speech, and artistic freedom. Edited by Martha Wilson, this richly illustrated collection brings together:Rare, never-before-seen archival materialsFirst-person accounts from artists on