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FRANKLIN COLLECTIVE
Franklin Collective, The arts collective, utilizes a unique mix of artists, designers and art world professionals to create immersive environments and artworks. Employing the form of a particular system, The Collective appropriates its structure to develop a critique from within — skewing and nudging, redefining and revealing. The Collective’s “The” series of works have been said to function as living sculptures, engaging viewers in both online and physical realms. To date, works include The Call Center, The Flight, The Gallery, The Radio, The Tower, The Wine and The Writings. Franklin Collective has been featured in institutions and publications including: Ethan Cohen Gallery (New York, NY), VOLTA Art Fair (New York, NY), Stream Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Artnet, BK Magazine, Expose Art Magazine, KRASS Journal and Widewalls while collaborating with Artists Space (New York, NY) and the Jefferson Market branch of the New York Public Library (New York, NY). Members of The Collective are bound by a mutual non-disclosure agreement.
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“The” assumes a single, unified experience. “The” totalizes. Unification can, of course become beneficial. In an aesthetic sense, George Santayana states that the unification of an object’s perceived elements are a manner in which we might become susceptible to its beauty. The rendering of parts to wholes. A similar benefit can read from the unification of bodies in a political action. Totalization becomes smooth, and flows from place to space. Dominant history gives us the sense that this is more of a rare occasion. More often than not, it is a way for a viewer, a user, a member, an account holder, an employee, a student to be made comfortable insomuch as to not become privy to a expanded understanding of an apparatus with weight and invisible, numbing teeth. That resentment you feel is normal, don’t worry. “The Total” is comfortable because it assumes and subsumes. It forgets the dirty bits that do not forecast a promising second quarter at last week’s meeting. But the dirty bits aren’t removed from the equation, of course. They are merely asked to enter through first class and make their way to the back of the plane. “The” is best understood from the receiving end. “The Goal” is not only to contain and to mitigate, but to remove liability. The individual that you need to speak to is offsite. That is a different department. I am unable to do that. Ability exonerates will. An illusion of “The” is that it remains unstriated. Yet, the striations and separations exist, they are only relocated, relabeled and packaged into something that can be made invisible via purchase. Upgrade. Expedite. Removal through optimized and choreographed participation and investment. Franklin Collective exists between the definite and indefinite article. “This” points a finger. It points to evidence, the concrete, the unique. “The” shrugs its shoulders. www.franklincollective.nyc