Ideas were forming in the aftermath of the events of 1990. One was to place the collection of artist's books in the embrace of a larger institution that would value it, and continue to catalogue, exhibit, lend and enlarge its scope. The Board made inquires at a few select institutions, including the Walker, the Guggenheim, and MOMA. But it was really Clive Phillpot's resolve to acquire Franklin Furnace's collection for the MOMA Library that made this deal happen in 1993. The terms that were important to us were that Franklin Furnace's name would remain on the Museum of Modern Art/Franklin Furnace/Artist Book Collection; and that its collection policy would be open to any artist who claimed, "this is a book." It remains the only uncurated collection at MOMA. This year, the collection has become accessible through MOMA and Franklin Furnace's websites so artists may look up their works to see how they are catalogued.

The other idea that galvanized the Board was that we should raise the money to make the down payment on purchasing Franklin Furnace's loft, and eventually bring the "c" copies of the artist book collection home to be handled casually, get coffee stained and read, as the artists intended; and to bring the performance art program home as well. In short, our idea was to renovate Franklin Furnace's loft into a downtown art emporium. After a Summer long search in 1994, we hired Bernard Tschumi to prepare a physically and visually accessible design that was still sensitive to the historic nature of the building and the neighborhood. And we hired a Capital Campaign Consultant to help us raise the $500,000 it was going to cost to make the design a reality.

During the 1994-95 season, four separate donors asked us, "Have you been to the American Center in Paris?" Here is an institution that sold its Beaux Arts building downtown to build a Frank Gehry building on the outskirts of Paris--and ran out of money to mount its program. The fog cleared in the Summer of 1995 when, sitting in my sister's kitchen staring at Mount Rainier, I realized that Franklin Furnace would never be remembered for its blonde oak floors, but rather for its program--and I was raising half a million dollars for the wrong purpose. Omigod.

 

22. Window installation by Dara Birnbaum, April 1978. Photo by Jacki Apple