Franklin Furnace is a renowned New York–based arts organization whose mission is to preserve, document, and present works of avant-garde art by emerging artists - particularly those whose works may be vulnerable due to institutional neglect or politically unpopular content. Over more than thirty years, Franklin Furnace has presented works by hundreds of avant-garde artists, some of whom - Laurie Anderson, Vito Acconci, Eric Bogosian, Jenny Holzer, Karen Finley, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Annie Sprinkle, and the Blue Man Group, to name a few - are now established names in contemporary art and entertainment.

Here, for the first time, is a comprehensive history of this remarkable organization from its conception to the present. Organized around the context of the major art genres that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century — artists’ books, live art, and digital performance — this book intersperses first-person narratives with empirical observations on issues critical to the organization's success as well as Franklin Furnace's many contributions to avant-garde art.