Conversation with Martha Wilson at Franklin Furnace, New York, 2003

Martha Wilson, a performance artist and founding director of Franklin Furnace, shares how her experiences as a feminist artist in Canada led her to create the institution. After her PhD thesis was rejected, she taught grammar at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD). In 1970, NSCAD’s visiting artist program featured figures like Joseph Beuys, Richard Serra, Dan Graham, Simone Forti, and Lucy Lippard. Lippard’s visit was pivotal: she recognized and affirmed Wilson’s work at a moment when Wilson’s mentor and the school’s male faculty dismissed it as non-art, insisting that women could not succeed in the field.

Determined to push forward, Wilson experimented with gender-based performance and color photography to challenge identity norms: “to understand what it is like to try to be a boy, trying to look like a girl, for example.” Seeking a more supportive environment, she moved to New York, first working in art book publishing before teaching at Brooklyn College. She soon founded Franklin Furnace as a nonprofit dedicated to collecting and exhibiting artists’ books—an underappreciated medium. It quickly expanded to include performance and installation art, creating conceptual spaces for artists to experiment.

In 1981, Franklin Furnace hosted LA/London Lab, curated by Suzanne Lacy and Susan Hiller, with Martha Rosler, Cheri Gaulke, Rose English, and Sally Potter, among others. For 20 years, the organization supported experimental and politically engaged artists. However, during the U.S. “culture wars” of the late 1980s and early 1990s, it faced backlash: “Artists were excoriated for using sexual imagery—Karen Finley, the Carnal Knowledge Collective, and others in a show called Voyeur’s Delight.” In response, Franklin Furnace transitioned online, ensuring artistic freedom and preserving the history of ephemeral art.

Franklin Furnace launched an archival project to digitize performance and installation records: “to preserve the record of this ephemeral practice.” Wilson highlights Franklin Furnace’s role in shaping art history terminology, ensuring that artists’ descriptions and self-identifications are preserved. Prioritizing accessibility, the organization secures grants and donations rather than relying on institutional funding. Its ongoing aim is to expand digital access to research on feminism, queerness, and politically charged topics, preserving avant-garde works for future generations. “The idea for Franklin Furnace came from being in a marginalized place in society—as a woman, as a woman artist…So I thought, I’m moving to New York and I’m going to start an institution for works of art that are being marginalized also by the art world.”