On the occasion of 30 years since his passing, The Flow Chart Foundation, in collaboration with the Network for New York School Studies presented a daylong Gathering celebrating the legacy of New York School artist and writer Joe Brainard. It featured talks, readings, screenings, participatory events, and fun designed to engage all by welcoming us into the world of this joyously generative and collaborative artist.

Visit here for information and videos from our 2023 Gathering, and here for information and videos from our 2022 Gathering.

[above: the audience enjoys a screening of Matt Wolf’s I Remember: A Film About Joe Brainard; right, Lucy Sante reading “I Remember the Fabled Rat Man (Apologies to Joe Brainard).”]

This program was funded in part by Humanities New York with support from the Mellon Foundation. Additional support provided by University of Birmingham, as well the New York Council on the Arts, with the support of the Governor, and the Friends of The Flow Chart Foundation.

The day’s presentations were audio live-streamed through our radio partner, WGXC (“radio for open ears”). Click button below to access the livestream archive (click the AUDIO button once there).

This third annual Gathering at the Flow Chart Space—“I Remember Joe Brainard”—celebrated the work of Joe Brainard (1942–1994), a queer New York City-based artist and poet, who died from AIDS, and who created a body of work committed to collaboration, friendship, generosity, and joy. His work—in all of its generative, hybrid modes—enjoys a cult status in a range of milieux, speaking to people of all genders, sexualities, ethnicities, and educational backgrounds.

Presenters included: Rona Cran, Tyhe Cooper, Paolo Javier, Ann Lauterbach, Jeffrey Lependorf, Betsy Porritt, Lucy Sante, Matt Wolf and John Yau. Special thanks to Ron Padgett for helping us in planning!

SCHEDULE:

[10am—bagels & coffee]

11am–11:15am — Welcome by Rona Cran (Network for New York School Studies) & Jeffrey Lependorf (The Flow Chart Foundation)

11:15am–12:15pm — Screening of Matt Wolf’s “I Remember: A Film about Joe Brainard” and a reading of “I Remember the Fabled Rat Man (Apologies to Joe Brainard)” by Lucy Sante, followed by a conversation between Wolf and Sante.

[12:15–12:30 — break]

12:30pm–1:30pm — John Yau on The Art of Joe Brainard, followed by a conversation between Yau and Tyhe Cooper

[1:30pm–3pm — lunch break—2nd Floor Ashbery Resource Center open for viewing]

3pm–3:30pm — Rona Cran on Brainard, Collage, and Collaboration

3:30pm–4:30pm — Betsy Porritt leading a Collaborative Collage Writing Workshop

[4:30pm–4:45pm — break]

4:45pm–5:15pm — Paolo Javier on Comics, Poetry, & OBB

5:15pm–6:15pm — Ann Lauterbach on Joe Brainard

6:15pm–7pm — Reception

On Joe Brainard:

Brainard’s output continues to inspire many. His 1970 book-length poem I REMEMBER is globally revered. Geoffrey O’Brian, in THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS wrote that the book “revealed [Brainard] as the inventor of an altogether new sort of book,” which has served as the basis for many new works by others since. Our Gathering project partner Rona Cran’s recent I REMEMBER KIM is just one example; Sigrid Nunez’s 2023 novel THE VULNERABLES is another. Brainard's artwork includes his seminal “Nancy” collages, drawings, and paintings, consisting of more than 100 manipulations of the popular comic strip figure, created from 1963 through 1978. They are collected in what was the very first book published by art+literature press Siglio (THE NANCY BOOK) to considerably wide appeal, and they demonstrate what publisher Lisa Pearson describes as Brainard’s “beguiling balance of mischief and innocence, irreverence and wonder, spontaneity and calculation.” In 1975 he collaborated with poet John Ashbery on the innovative hybrid work THE VERMONT NOTEBOOK, which combines more than 50 ink drawings by Brainard with as many prose texts by Ashbery, in a book that Peter Schjeldahl called “touched with genius.”

Brainard’s art and writing has recently informed as diverse a set of cultural venues as Sterlin Harjo’s acclaimed TV series RESERVATION DOGS (2021-2023), Sheila Heti’s ALPHABETICAL DIARIES (2024), and the fashion house Loewe’s 2021 menswear and womenswear collections, in addition to the works by Nunez and Cran mentioned above. But beyond this influence, his life and work were (and are) a testament to gentleness, to togetherness, and to the humanity that inheres in attending with joy and dedication to our everyday experiences—a humanity that deserves celebration and cultivation now more than ever. As Laurie Langbauer notes, “attention to the everyday is important because it is there that we can see how society works.” In this sense, Brainard shares a lineage with French writer George Perec’s notion of the “infra-ordinary”—a turning away from “the extra-ordinary” to attend to “what’s really going on, what we’re experiencing, the rest, all the rest.” The “rest” might simply be what Amiri Baraka called “tales about our own lives”—tales that in 2024 might remind us that we have more in common than that which divides us. Brainard’s work enacts and celebrates cooperation and collaboration—it did so during his lifetime, and it continues to do so today.

This year's Gathering will offer participants the opportunity to come together to reciprocally engage in a day-long series of accessible, pleasurable, and shared processes of art-making, reading, active listening, and conversation, for free, taking away with them a physical memento that they have made in collaboration with a new friend, as well as new ideas and memories.

Bios

Rona Cran is a London-based writer and scholar. They are the author of Collage in Twentieth-Century Art, Literature, and Culture (2014) and I Remember Kim (2023), and the founding co-director of the Network for New York School Studies. Books in progress include an oral history of the New York School of poets, a study of everyday rebellion, dissident reading, and alternate worldbuilding in New York poetry, and a poetic history of sharks. They are Associate Professor in Twentieth-Century American Literature at the University of Birmingham.

Tyhe Cooper is a writer working in experimental prose and poetry. Their work has been published in the Brooklyn Rail, the Poetry Project Newsletter, Peach Mag, and elsewhere. They are the Production Editor and a poetry events curator at the Brooklyn Rail, and the co-editor and co-creator of Leak magazine, with Erin Pérez. 

Paolo Javier is the author of O.B.B. (Nightboat Books, 2021) and a recent book of paraliterary and hybrid poems, True Account of Talking to the 7 in Sunnyside (Roof Books, 2022), and has produced three albums of sound poetry with Listening Center (David Mason). He is the recipient of grants from the Rauschenberg Foundation, NYFA, Queens Council on the Arts, and New York State Council on the Arts, Javier was a featured artist in Greater New York 2015, and in Queens International 2018: Volumes. He lives with his family in Jackson Heights, Queens. 

Ann Lauterbach is a poet and essayist. Her eleventh collection of poetry is Door (Penguin Poets, 2023). A recipient of numerous awards, her work has been supported by grants from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations. She is Schwab Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College.

Jeffrey Lependorf is the Executive Director of The Flow Chart Foundation.

Betsy Porritt is a poet and literary scholar from Devon. She currently teaches interdisciplinary theory and practice at the University of Birmingham. Her poems, collages, and sound works are online and in a wide variety of print journals. She has a pamphlet of poetry with Guillemot Press and a cowritten chapter coming out in a Routledge collection in which she discusses, with Dr. Declan Wiffen, the possibilities of teaching the anecdote as a space of queer, feminist refusal.

Lucy Sante is a Belgium-born American writer, critic, and artist. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. Her books include Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (1991) and Call I Hear Her Call My Name: a Memoir of Transition (Penguin Press, 2024). She was publicly named Luc Sante until 2021, when she announced her transition.

Matt Wolf is a filmmaker in New York. His feature documentaries include Wild Combination about the musician Arthur Russell, Teenage about the birth of youth culture, Recorder about the activist Marion Stokes, who recorded television 24 hours a day for 30 years, and Spaceship Earth about Biosphere 2, a controversial experiment where 8 people lived quarantined inside a miniature replica of the planet. The Criterion Channel is currently presenting a survey of Matt’s films, and he is finishing a multi-part film for HBO about Paul Reubens and his alter ego Pee-wee Herman.

John Yau three most recent books include: Joe Brainard: The Art of the Personal (Rizzoli, 2022); Tell It Slant (Omnidawn, 2023); John Pai: Liquid Steel (Rizzoli (2023). An exhibition, Disguise the Limit: John Yau’s Collaborations, opened at the art museum of the University of Kentucky in Lexington in January 2024, curated by Stuart Horodner.

About Hudson, NY

About the vibrant, cultural destination of Hudson, NY, from the Hudson, NY Visitor website. A view of Hudson from CondeNast Traveler, visiting Hudson on Vogue, and from the “Adventurous Kate” blog: “The Coolest Small Town in America.”

Most will travel to Hudson, NY by Amtrak train from New York City’s Penn Station (Moynahan Train Hall). The train ride is approximately 2 hours. Tickets can be booked here (you will book tickets for travel from NYP to HUD).

Car travel directions can be found by setting GPS to 348 Warren St, Hudson, NY 12534.

It is recommended that Gathering attendees stay over in Hudson if possible. Hudson has many small hotels though prices can be high during tourist season. Ample apartment and house rentals can be found through AirBnB and VRBO. More affordable hotels (among several more expensive boutique hotels) include the St. Charles Hotel and Hudson Whaler. There are also a wide variety of Bed & Breakfasts in Hudson as well as cheaper establishments in nearby Catskill. Some listings can be found here.

The Flow Chart Space is a relatively short walk from the Hudson Amtrak station. Taxis and Uber are also sometimes available.

Traveling by train for the day from NYC?

Book your Amtrak travel from NYP (New York Penn Station Moynahan Train Hall) to HUD (Hudson, NY).

[pictured below: Warren Street in Hudson NY (left), and The Flow Chart Foundation & Ashbery Resource Center (right, located in the center of town)]

A Partial and Selective List of Local Dining and Takeout Suggestions in Hudson, NY

TAKEOUT & COFFEE

El Sabor de Oaxaca—Mexican take-out with outdoor seating. 9am–9pm Sat./Sun. 364 Warren Street (a few doors uphill from Flow Chart).

Talbot & Arding—gourmet grocery store with excellent takeout prepared sandwiches and salads (order at the counter or find “grab ‘n go” sandwiches in refrigerator case); a few tables inside to eat there. 9am–6pm Sat./Sun. 202 Allen (parallel to Warren Street. Walk down to 3rd, make a left, then continue to Partition Street and make a right to enter from the back at corner of 2nd Street).

Kitty’s Market Café—takeout cafe has excellent egg sandwiches in the morning, and rotisserie chicken plates with sides during the day. May close at 6pm (full restaurant open until 9pm), lovely outdoor garden with bar. 8am—9pm Sat./Sun. 60 S. Front Street (across from Amtrak Station)

Moto Coffee Machine—coffee bar with small selection of sandwiches with tables inside. 8am–6pm Sat. / Sun. 357 Warren Street (across the street from Flow Chart)

Little Rico—vegan offerings and juice bar. 8am–4pm Sat. / Sun.—8am–4pm. 437 Warren Street

WYLDE Hudson—coffee bar & bar with excellent baked goods, indoor and outdoor seating. 8am–6pm Sat. / 8am–5pm Sun. 35 S. 3rd Street

Supernatural—best coffee in town and nice selection of baked goods. 8am–4pm Sat. (closed Sun.) 527 Warren Street

The Juice Branch—juice bar and vegan “bowls.” 9am–4pm Sat. / 9am–2pm Sun. 719 Columbia Street

DINING

Swoon Kitchenbar—American farm to table and bar. Reservations recommended. noon–10pm Sat./noon-9pm Sun. 340 Warren Street

The Red Dot—bar and restaurant, an old standby with lovely “secret garden” in back. 11am–3pm and 5pm–10pm Sat./Sun. 321 Warren Street

Backbar—bar, beer garden, and Malaysian food. 347 Warren Street (across the street). 347 Warren Street

Baba Louis’s—gourmet pizza. noon–3 and 5–9 Sat./Sun. 517 Warren Street

Issan Thai Star—Thai with lovely back garden. Reservations recommended. noon–10pm Sat. / noon–9pm Sun. 41 N. 7th Street (walk uphill to 7th and make a left)

Wunderbar Bistro—sandwiches, pizza, and schnitzel. 11am–9pm Sat. (closed Sun.). 744 Warren Street

Lil’ Deb’s Oasis—destination-worthy Pan-Latin restaurant that doesn’t take reservations but is worth the wait. 5pm–10pm Sat./Sun. 747 Columbia Street (walk uphill on Warren to town square, cross it diagonally and continue on Columbia Street to pink awning)

Le Gamin Country—French café with crepes, sandwiches, omelettes, salads. Cash only. 9am–5pm Sat./Sun. 609 Warren Street

Savona’s Trattoria & Bar—Italian. Reservations recommended. 11:30am–10pm Sat./11am–9pm Sun. 136 Warren Street

Ca’Mea Restaurant—Italian. noon–3pm and 5–9pm Sat./noon–6pm Sun. 214 Warren Street

Kitty's—excellent new American, shared plates, cocktails. 60 S. Front Street (reservations recommended). 60 S. Front Street

Bodega Aguila Real—excellent and inexpensive Mexican food, breakfast and lunch. Eat there or take out and eat in the nearby town square park. 7am–5pm Sat. / 7am–2:30 Sun. 749 Columbia Street.

Casa Latina—excellent and inexpensive El Salvadoran and Mexican food (though a bit of a walk). Limited seating inside, tables outside. 10am–9pm Sat. (closed Sun.). 78 Green Street.

COCKTAIL BARS (in addition to above)

Padrona—craft cocktails. 3pm–midnight Sat./3-10pm Sun. 17 N. 4th Street (walk uphill and make a left)

The Hereafter—craft cocktails and small plates. 4pm–1am Sat. / 4pm–midnight Sun. 721 Columbia Street

The Maker Lounge—almost secret, hotel speakeasy lounge. 3pm–11pm Sat./3pm–10pm Sun. 302 Warren (entrance at N. 3rd Street & Prison Alley)

MICROBREWERIES

Return Brewing—1pm–10pm Sat. / 1pm–8pm Sun. 726 State Street

Upper Depot–noon–10pm Sat. / noon–8pm Sun. 708 State Street (across the street from Return Brewing)

Union Street Brewery—noon–10pm Sat. / noon–8pm Sun. 716 Union Street

Hudson Brewing Company—noon–10pm Sat. / noon–8pm Sun. 99 S 3rd Street (to get there, walk all the way downhill to Front Street, make a left, and pass the train station and industrial tracks, then walk inland)