Brattleboro resident Nye Ffarrabas’ 50-year retrospective of her work is being celebrated in a new exhibtion and book just published through C. X. Silver Gallery.
C X Silver Gallery presents Nye Ffarrabas: A Walk on the Inside, an exhibition May 2 to Saturday August 23, 2014. The accompanying publication, with the same name as the exhibition, is part catalogue, part memoir, part monograph, a tribute to an artist and poet whose creative works span more than fifty years from the heyday of Fluxus Art of the sixties and seventies and continue to the present day. Please join us for the opening reception and book launch Sunday afternoon May 4th, 2014, 1-4pm, at the Gallery, 814 Western Avenue, Brattleboro, VT. Some improvisation, readings, and performance pieces may be part of the event.
Nye’s work over the years comprises writing, the visual arts, performances, and readings. Her work, like that of fellow Fluxus artists of the 1960s and 70s transcends neat categorization and even pushes the boundaries of conventional definitions of ‘art. The exhibition features wall pieces, drawings, installations, photographic documentation of her performances and happenings, artifacts and sculpture from a variety of her creative projects. The publication extends the view of her written work and gives voice to her many performances, happenings, experiments, musings and insights. A number of works of engagement, performance and installation beginning in the 1960s will be shown in photographs or else narrated by Nye in the publication.
More information is at cxsilvergallery.com. A preview of the book accompanying the exhibition is at 
cxsilvergallery.magcloud.com.
Contributors to the book summarize Nye’s life work of art and poetry as a continual adventure:
“The artist who was Bici Forbes who became Nye Ffarrabas made an art that integrated life in a deep and peculiarly Fluxus way. She left far more than fifty years of footprints behind her in the world. So it’s more than fifty years we celebrate here.” – Ken Friedman
“Nye seems to me to occupy an ongoing, open-minded, creative state of surprise.” – Jacquelynn Baas
“Nye is a wordsmith, an alchemist with words.” – Geoffrey Hendricks
“In often playful and intimate work, we witness her grit, her endurance, and delight in the wicked turns of phrase, grounded deep in Yankee sensibility and generosity of spirit.” – Kendra Mackenzie
“In these activities she is present, present in the richest sense of truly Being-in-the-world in a way reserved for the blessedly fallen among us who really are consciously in the world. She is here and there, then and now, encased in and free from her time.” – Hannah Higgins
Nye Ffarrabas, as usual, has fun with explaining what she has been doing starting from her pioneering work of the 1960s and 70s into her ongoing fusion of art and poetry:
“Am I an ‘artist’? Or a ‘writer’? (Or what? ) The answer is, ‘Definitely.’ I work with what I find around me, either objects or words, and I go from there. It’s a way of engaging with the world in an experimental, questing manner, much as a baby puts everything in her mouth to find out what it is.”
“The materials I use are often taken from stuff that other people have jettisoned: left-overs, broken objects, typos, and such. Sometimes these things have been reworked, other times the simple act of finding them and giving them a name, and a place to be, is it.”
“When you start seeing things in a new way, nothing is exempt, and the playfulness that emanates from this brings new insights, fresh interconnections, and some unsuspected depths. At the same time, speaking from my own perspective, everything is in some way sacred. And special. And weird. And heartbreaking. And hilarious. And breathtaking. And touching. . And, in the presence of insatiable curiosity and plentiful goodwill, anything can be seen anew, in another light, showing us ourselves, also, in new ways.”
The Gallery is open by appointment Thursdays through Sundays 3-8pm during the exhibition. Calling ahead is recommended. Other times and days are also possible with advance notice. For further information, contact C.X. Silver Gallery, Adam Silver – info@cxsilvergallery.com or (802) 257-7898, extension 2.
