May 17, 10:00 AM–5:00 PM
We are excited to have artist Anne Cousineau on site making a work from May 17 – 24th. For the last two days of Anne’s residency, Franklin Street Works is inviting community organizations, with a special emphasis on LGBTQI+ youth groups, to join LA-based, Queer/Trans artist Anne Cousineau for a casual conversation while the artist creates a site-specific floor painting in Franklin Street Works’ downstairs gallery.
If you would like to invite your organization and/or the people it serves to join our creative director, Terri C Smith, and exhibiting artist Anne Cousineau on Wednesday, May 23rd or Thursday, May 24th please email Terri C Smith at terri@franklinstreetworks.org. This program is free to participants and is part of the educational programming for the group exhibition “My Vicious Throbbing Heart: Animating Desire in Abstract Painting,” curated by Risa Puleo. Franklin Street Works is open from 10am – 5pm, but we are happy to discuss other time(s) if that window isn’t convenient.
When you visit, Anne will present their work and process, ask our guests to put descriptive language to the abstract work on view, and, through simple exercises, and encourage you to reflect on/share their own creative practice and/or identity in relationship to their work as well as the larger group exhibition. We will also provide complimentary coffee and mini cookies! Franklin Street Works hopes to get permission from St. Andrew’s church across the street so visiting groups can park for free on those days.
ABOUT THE ARTIST: Anne Cousineau is a Queer/Trans artist living and working in Los Angeles, CA and the Mojave Desert. Through material investigations, Anne entangles cultural notions of the synthetic and organic to consider somatic and ecological imaginaries. They received a BFA in Painting from The Rhode Island School of Design and are currently an MFA candidate at The Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College. For more check out Anne’s artist website: http://afcousineau.com/
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION: The paintings in “My Vicious Throbbing Heart: Animating Desire in Abstract Painting” operate in between coming into being and moving out of form. They are underscored by a sense of aliveness. This exhibition investigates the intersection of abstraction and animism as emphasized by certain formal qualities — goopy, sticky, ooey-gooey or otherwise materially luscious surfaces in combination with aspects of pattern and repetitions such as flutter, throbbing, palpitation, pulsating, orgiastic rhythms. An idea of “Frankenstein Painting” includes forms of abstraction that attempt to spark life and animate the canvas as its own entity. Anna Betbeze, Anne Cousineau, Leidy Churchman, Matt Morris, Carrie Moyer, Sigrid Sandstrom, Laurel Sparks, Latham Zearfross and Claire Arctander, and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung draw lineages that include Pattern and Decoration, craft, textiles, and the spill-and-pour aesthetics of Helen Frankenthaler and Lynda Benglis. Taking the forms of videos, a colored fabric installation, a rope and rock assemblage, charred and dyed fur, and alchemical experiments on canvas and the gallery floor, these artists luxuriate in materiality while challenging the medium specificity of painting.
ACCESSIBILITY: Franklin Street Works has a temporary ramp for accessing our gallery. Please call the main land line during gallery hours 203-595-5211 and talk to a team member or call Creative Director Terri C Smith’s cell at 203-253-0404 or email her at terri@franklinstreetworks.org to use the ramp or for any other access requests.
The ramp is in the back entrance is up a curb, across approximately 9 feet of mulch from the next door parking lot which is accessible from the sidewalk. Once inside there is an elevator available. Bathrooms are large and clear but do not have access bars. Franklin Street Works is in the process of installing a permanent walkway and finishing our ramp so it is ADA compliant.
We are also discussing additional components including ESL with the artist and curator. To inquire about progress regarding these additions, email terri@franklinstreetworks.org