John Fekner
Encyclopedia
John Fekner is an innovative artist who created hundreds of environmental and conceptual outdoor works consisting of stenciled words, symbols, dates and icons spray painted in New York
, Sweden
, Canada
, England
and Germany
in the 70s and 80s. A seminal figure in the Street Art
movement, Fekner participated in recent urban art exhibitions such as Wooster Collective
's 11 Spring Street Project in 2006. Working with Don leicht
, their latest outdoor project, entitled "The Stanley Cup
is missing" is currently part of the annual BLK River street art
festival in Vienna
, Austria
. Art writer Lucy Lippard writes, "Fekner does in public what a lot of art world artists don’t even do in galleries: he dispels ambiguity by naming his visions, his viewpoint."
In 1968, Fekner painted the words Itchycoo Park in large white letters on an empty building in Gorman Park, New York, and in 1978 he curated the Detective Show at the same outdoor location in Queens which included the words street museum on the invitational card.
In reaction to the desolation of the abandoned burnt-out buildings of the South Bronx, Fekner stenciled Last Hope in large letters above one crumbling structure so that every time you passed it you couldn’t block it out of your vision. Now you know you can’t change the world, but you can’t sit back and watch it implode either, so you’ll do your part, have your own little victory, and so will the next guy and the next, and maybe things will start to change.
Fekner's output includes paintings, cast paper reliefs, video, audio and performance works, sculpture, photography and computer-generated work. Fekner creates multiple versions of work in entirely different media and will use whatever means are necessary to communicate a vision or message, and whose work changes as that vision expands. Throughout his entire career in the arts, Fekner has made a commitment within his work by consistently addressing issues that demonstrate an interest involving concepts of perception and transformation, as well as specific environmental and sociological concerns such as urban decay
, greed, chemical pollutants, mass media
and Native American
Indians. Fekner's stencil Wheels Over Indian Trails greeted motorists and international travelers arriving in New York City
at the Pulaski Bridge Queens Midtown Tunnel from 1979-1990. The message remained untouched for eleven years, until Earth Day 1990, when Mr. Fekner, feeling the piece had run its course, painted over it.
in 1968 were the words Itchycoo Park
painted at Gorman Park 85th Street Park in Jackson Heights, Queens. Along with a few buddies on the park house roof, he painted the phrase in large white letters across the front of the building. Fekner appropriated the name of the popular hit written and recorded by the Small Faces about a park in Newham
, England
. Subsequently, the Jackson Heights local football team took the name, Itchycoo Chiefs in the 70s. Ten years later, Fekner used the park as a base for his stencils projects. In May 1978, he curated the Detective Show with help from the Institute for Art and Urban Resources (P.S. 1). A group of thirty artists including Gordon Matta-Clark
, Don Leicht
, Lucio Pozzi
, Lou Forgione, Richard Artschwager
and Claudia De Monte hid art and created subtle art work in situ
throughout the park.
Fekner's Warning Signs project focused on accentuating deteriorating conditions that dominated New York City
and its environs in the 70s. In 1976, Fekner began to create site-specific
temporary ‘word-signs’ using hand-cut cardboard stencils and spray paint on a relentless crusade concerned with social and environmental issues. First seen on the industrial streets and highways of Queens
, the East River
bridges, and later in the South Bronx
, his ‘messages’ were spray painted in areas that were in need of construction, demolition or reconstruction. By labeling the structures, Fekner's objective was to draw attention to the accumulated squalor by urging city officials, agencies and local communities to be more responsible and take action. His first stencil projects, Industrial Fossil, Urban Decay, Decay/Abandoned, Instant This Instant That, and The Remains of Industry were not intended to remain for long periods of time. The projects succeeded when the existing condition was removed or remedied. In 1979, Fekner began experimenting with video and audio, working with Fred Baca on Environmental Stencils 77-79, a grainy, grim black & white 8mm film/video that not only documents Fekner's stencil projects, but is also a bleak portrait of New York City in ruins.
Fashion Moda
is most often associated with graffiti art and its acceptance into the art world through such figures as Fekner, Jean-Michel Basquiat
, Jenny Holzer
, and Keith Haring
. In February 1980, Fekner began working in, around, and out of Fashion Moda, a storefront for experimental art and cultural exchange, and an outpost for showcasing graffiti
, breakdancing and rapping
. Through his association with Fashion Moda, Fekner went to Charlotte Street and stenciled six spray painted messages including Decay, Broken Promises, Falsas Promesas, Last Hope, Broken Treaties and Save Our School. When Presidential Candidate Ronald Reagan
stood in front of Fekner’s stencils, Decay and Broken Promises on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx on August 5, 1980 at the People's Convention, Fekner detoured away from the notoriety to explore a new found interest in multimedia art.
, Keith Haring
and John Matos
/Crash to experiment on the early interactive teletext
system Telidon
at NYU’s Alternate Media Center, the predecessor of its Interactive Telecommunications Program. Fekner received his first international award at Toronto
's Video Culture Festival in the Videotex
category for Toxic Wastes From A to Z, an 8-bit
computer graphics
animation
created at AMC which featured a rap
by k-8 students from a South Bronx school. In the New York Times, Matthew Mirapaul said, "Fekner's work incorporates jagged, pixilated computer-generated imagery because 'its characteristic of the medium....it's almost like the drip in a Jackson Pollock
,' Mr. Fekner stated."
Fekner began collaborating with Bronx artist Don Leicht
at PS1 now called MoMA PS1 where they shared a studio in 1976. In 1982, they began a series of work and installations using steel, cut metal, aluminum and automotive paints based on Nishikado's Space Invaders
arcade game with the statement: "Your Space Has Been Invaded-Our Children are Fighting a Terrible War. Whole families are being sent to Battlescreen." Their "Beauty's Only Street Deep" was installed at the Wooster Collective
's 11 Spring Street street art
2006 exhibition in NYC. Since the 70s, Fekner has collaborated with John Matos
/Crash, David Wojnarowicz
, Sandra Seymour, Lady Pink
, Peter Mönnig, A-One, Toxic, Andrew Castrucci, Sasha Sumner, Chris Stain, Josh MacPhee
, Billy Mode and other musicians, writers and new media artists. Fekner was included in Documenta
7 as part of Jenny Holzer
's and Stefan Eins
' Fashion Moda
Store, and the Committed To Print exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art
.
A multi-disciplinary artist, Fekner formed his own band City Squad in 1983. City Squad was composed of musicians and non-musicians as an extension of Queensites, a group of teenagers from Jackson Heights
who assisted with the outdoor stencil work. In September, Fekner released his first rap/rock 12" EP on his own Vinyl Gridlock record label. The A-side, "2 4 5 7 9 11" had Kwame Monroe, aka Bear 167, a South Bronx graffiti
artist as the guest rapper; and the B-side featured Dave Santaniello on rock vocals on "Rock Steady". On the Apple II
, Fekner experimented with early speech synthesis programs, Votrax
and SAM-Software Automatic Mouth
as vocal tracks on "2 4 5 7 9 11" and on his Idioblast album in 1984. In addition to playing keyboards, electronic drums and vocals, he wrote the music and lyrics for the eight songs on the album which featured extensive sampling and tape loops of TV, radio, Native American voices, phone and airport transmissions over rock/rap/hip hop
beats. Tracks on the album included Travelogue The 80s, I Get Paid To Clap, The Beat, The Sight Of The Child, Wheels Over Indian Trails and Rapicasso, which Fekner also created as a 6' x 12' six-panel painting. Both the painting and song pay homage to Picasso’s The Three Dancers
. Fekner spray painted LCD-style letters on industrial silkscreens to portray three breakdancers, the song’s lyrics acknowledging the work, energy and spirit in breakdancing, rapping and graffiti: "Watch the street, see the modern art, it’s the present and future tied to his heart."
The 12" EP single, "Concrete People/Concrete Concerto", was a music collaboration with Dennis Mann (1950–2008) and Al Belfiore who programmed the Linn LM-1
Drum Computer. Fekner recorded at Mann's Monkey Hill Studios from 1983-1989 where the Fatback Band
, whose "King Tim III (Personality Jock)
", considered to be the first commercially released rap single in 1979, were also recording. On both "Concrete People/Concrete Concerto", Fekner worked with musicians Sasha Sumner (sax), Jim Recchione (harmonica), Sandra Seymour (vocals), Sandy Mann (vocals) and Andrew Ruhren (animator and EP cover illustration). Concrete People was a popular dance club video, shown on USA Network NightFlight's Salute to Animation with Peter Gabriel
's "Sledgehammer", Talking Heads
"And She Was" and Timbuk 3
's "The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades". "Concrete People" and "The Last Days of Good and Evil" ("Concrete Concerto" soundtrack) both won honorary awards in the Prix Ars Electronica
's Computer Animation
category, together with award winner John Lasseter
for his Luxo Jr.
and Red's Dream
in 1987 and 1988 respectively. In October 2008, Fekner released a remixed version of his 1984 "Another 4 Years" as "Another 4 Years (Edit/Elect08)" mp3
download and as a video on Vimeo
that includes footage of former President Ronald Reagan
campaign visit on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx
on August 5, 1980.
near the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. What in other hands might have been vandalism had a salutary effect. People in desolate parts of the city saw more, felt more, thought more and came out of their apathy.
Lucy Lippard in the Village Voice called him "caption writer to the urban environment, ad-man for the opposition."
The Wooster Collective said, "For us, John Fekner's pioneering stencil work is as important to the history of the urban art movement as the work of artists like Haring, Basquiat. It was artists like Fekner, Leicht, Hambleton and others who truly held down the scene back in the early 80's."
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in the 70s and 80s. A seminal figure in the Street Art
Street art
Street art is any art developed in public spaces — that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives...
movement, Fekner participated in recent urban art exhibitions such as Wooster Collective
Wooster Collective
Wooster Collective is a website founded in 2003 that showcases street art from around the world. It is dedicated to showcasing and celebrating ephemeral art placed on streets in cities around the world. Updated by Marc and Sara Schiller, the site also offers podcasting with music and interviews...
's 11 Spring Street Project in 2006. Working with Don leicht
Don Leicht
Don Leicht is a visual artist who has worked as a painter and sculptor in the Bronx, New York City for over thirty years. Leicht has had one person exhibitions in New York, Sweden and Germany and is an early figure in the New York City downtown scene in the 1970s, and in the subsequent Street Art...
, their latest outdoor project, entitled "The Stanley Cup
Stanley Cup
The Stanley Cup is an ice hockey club trophy, awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoffs champion after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug...
is missing" is currently part of the annual BLK River street art
Street art
Street art is any art developed in public spaces — that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives...
festival in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. Art writer Lucy Lippard writes, "Fekner does in public what a lot of art world artists don’t even do in galleries: he dispels ambiguity by naming his visions, his viewpoint."
In 1968, Fekner painted the words Itchycoo Park in large white letters on an empty building in Gorman Park, New York, and in 1978 he curated the Detective Show at the same outdoor location in Queens which included the words street museum on the invitational card.
In reaction to the desolation of the abandoned burnt-out buildings of the South Bronx, Fekner stenciled Last Hope in large letters above one crumbling structure so that every time you passed it you couldn’t block it out of your vision. Now you know you can’t change the world, but you can’t sit back and watch it implode either, so you’ll do your part, have your own little victory, and so will the next guy and the next, and maybe things will start to change.
Fekner's output includes paintings, cast paper reliefs, video, audio and performance works, sculpture, photography and computer-generated work. Fekner creates multiple versions of work in entirely different media and will use whatever means are necessary to communicate a vision or message, and whose work changes as that vision expands. Throughout his entire career in the arts, Fekner has made a commitment within his work by consistently addressing issues that demonstrate an interest involving concepts of perception and transformation, as well as specific environmental and sociological concerns such as urban decay
Urban decay
Urban decay is the process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude...
, greed, chemical pollutants, mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
and Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
Indians. Fekner's stencil Wheels Over Indian Trails greeted motorists and international travelers arriving in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
at the Pulaski Bridge Queens Midtown Tunnel from 1979-1990. The message remained untouched for eleven years, until Earth Day 1990, when Mr. Fekner, feeling the piece had run its course, painted over it.
Early years
Fekner began writing poetry as a young teenager, and his first outdoor graffitiGraffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
in 1968 were the words Itchycoo Park
Itchycoo Park
"Itchycoo Park" is a psychedelic pop song written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, first recorded by their group, the Small Faces. The song reached number three in the UK Singles Chart, 1967.-Song profile:...
painted at Gorman Park 85th Street Park in Jackson Heights, Queens. Along with a few buddies on the park house roof, he painted the phrase in large white letters across the front of the building. Fekner appropriated the name of the popular hit written and recorded by the Small Faces about a park in Newham
London Borough of Newham
The London Borough of Newham is a London borough formed from the towns of West Ham and East Ham, within East London.It is situated east of the City of London, and is north of the River Thames. According to 2006 estimates, Newham has one of the highest ethnic minority populations of all the...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Subsequently, the Jackson Heights local football team took the name, Itchycoo Chiefs in the 70s. Ten years later, Fekner used the park as a base for his stencils projects. In May 1978, he curated the Detective Show with help from the Institute for Art and Urban Resources (P.S. 1). A group of thirty artists including Gordon Matta-Clark
Gordon Matta-Clark
Gordon Matta-Clark was an American artist best known for his site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He is famous for his "building cuts," a series of works in abandoned buildings in which he variously removed sections of floors, ceilings, and walls.-Life and work:Both of Gordon Matta-Clark's...
, Don Leicht
Don Leicht
Don Leicht is a visual artist who has worked as a painter and sculptor in the Bronx, New York City for over thirty years. Leicht has had one person exhibitions in New York, Sweden and Germany and is an early figure in the New York City downtown scene in the 1970s, and in the subsequent Street Art...
, Lucio Pozzi
Lucio Pozzi
Lucio Pozzi is a Milanese painter and performance artist.His work is in the collections of the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center; the Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Art Gallery of Ontario; the New York Public Library; the Detroit Institute of Arts; Giuseppe Panza;...
, Lou Forgione, Richard Artschwager
Richard Artschwager
Richard Artschwager is an American painter, illustrator and sculptor, born in 1923 in Washington, D.C.. Artschwager is best known for his stylistic independence; although he has associations with the Pop Art movement, Conceptual art and Minimalism....
and Claudia De Monte hid art and created subtle art work in situ
In situ
In situ is a Latin phrase which translated literally as 'In position'. It is used in many different contexts.-Aerospace:In the aerospace industry, equipment on board aircraft must be tested in situ, or in place, to confirm everything functions properly as a system. Individually, each piece may...
throughout the park.
Queens projects
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and its environs in the 70s. In 1976, Fekner began to create site-specific
Site-specific art
Site-specific art is artwork created to exist in a certain place. Typically, the artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork...
temporary ‘word-signs’ using hand-cut cardboard stencils and spray paint on a relentless crusade concerned with social and environmental issues. First seen on the industrial streets and highways of Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
, the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
bridges, and later in the South Bronx
South Bronx
The South Bronx is an area of the New York City borough of The Bronx. The neighborhoods of Tremont, University Heights, Highbridge, Morrisania, Soundview, Hunts Point, and Castle Hill are sometimes considered part of the South Bronx....
, his ‘messages’ were spray painted in areas that were in need of construction, demolition or reconstruction. By labeling the structures, Fekner's objective was to draw attention to the accumulated squalor by urging city officials, agencies and local communities to be more responsible and take action. His first stencil projects, Industrial Fossil, Urban Decay, Decay/Abandoned, Instant This Instant That, and The Remains of Industry were not intended to remain for long periods of time. The projects succeeded when the existing condition was removed or remedied. In 1979, Fekner began experimenting with video and audio, working with Fred Baca on Environmental Stencils 77-79, a grainy, grim black & white 8mm film/video that not only documents Fekner's stencil projects, but is also a bleak portrait of New York City in ruins.
Bronx projects
Fashion Moda
Fashion Moda is a cultural concept. As a museum of science, art, invention, technology and fantasy in its South Bronx location from 1978-1993 it combined aspects of a community arts centre and a worldwide progressive arts organization.-History:...
is most often associated with graffiti art and its acceptance into the art world through such figures as Fekner, Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. His career in art began as a graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting.-Early life:...
, Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer is an American conceptual artist. Holzer lives and works in Hoosick Falls, New York.-Education:...
, and Keith Haring
Keith Haring
Keith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
. In February 1980, Fekner began working in, around, and out of Fashion Moda, a storefront for experimental art and cultural exchange, and an outpost for showcasing graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
, breakdancing and rapping
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
. Through his association with Fashion Moda, Fekner went to Charlotte Street and stenciled six spray painted messages including Decay, Broken Promises, Falsas Promesas, Last Hope, Broken Treaties and Save Our School. When Presidential Candidate Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
stood in front of Fekner’s stencils, Decay and Broken Promises on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx on August 5, 1980 at the People's Convention, Fekner detoured away from the notoriety to explore a new found interest in multimedia art.
Multimedia
In 1981, Martin A. Nisenholtz invited Fekner, Andy WarholAndy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, Keith Haring
Keith Haring
Keith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
and John Matos
John Matos
Crash is a graffiti artist. As early as 13, John Matos was spray painting New York City trains, the full image art as opposed to simpler tagging soon transferred to silk screened canvas. He was first noticed through his murals on subway cars and dilapidated buildings, he is now regarded as a...
/Crash to experiment on the early interactive teletext
Teletext
Teletext is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules...
system Telidon
Telidon
Telidon was a videotex/teletext service developed by the Canadian Communications Research Centre during the late 1970s and early 1980s...
at NYU’s Alternate Media Center, the predecessor of its Interactive Telecommunications Program. Fekner received his first international award at Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
's Video Culture Festival in the Videotex
Videotex
Videotex was one of the earliest implementations of an "end-user information system". From the late 1970s to mid-1980s, it was used to deliver information to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television.In a strict definition, videotex refers to systems that provide...
category for Toxic Wastes From A to Z, an 8-bit
8-bit
The first widely adopted 8-bit microprocessor was the Intel 8080, being used in many hobbyist computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s, often running the CP/M operating system. The Zilog Z80 and the Motorola 6800 were also used in similar computers...
computer graphics
Computer graphics
Computer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and hardware....
animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
created at AMC which featured a rap
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
by k-8 students from a South Bronx school. In the New York Times, Matthew Mirapaul said, "Fekner's work incorporates jagged, pixilated computer-generated imagery because 'its characteristic of the medium....it's almost like the drip in a Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
,' Mr. Fekner stated."
Collaborations
Don Leicht
Don Leicht is a visual artist who has worked as a painter and sculptor in the Bronx, New York City for over thirty years. Leicht has had one person exhibitions in New York, Sweden and Germany and is an early figure in the New York City downtown scene in the 1970s, and in the subsequent Street Art...
at PS1 now called MoMA PS1 where they shared a studio in 1976. In 1982, they began a series of work and installations using steel, cut metal, aluminum and automotive paints based on Nishikado's Space Invaders
Space Invaders
is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to...
arcade game with the statement: "Your Space Has Been Invaded-Our Children are Fighting a Terrible War. Whole families are being sent to Battlescreen." Their "Beauty's Only Street Deep" was installed at the Wooster Collective
Wooster Collective
Wooster Collective is a website founded in 2003 that showcases street art from around the world. It is dedicated to showcasing and celebrating ephemeral art placed on streets in cities around the world. Updated by Marc and Sara Schiller, the site also offers podcasting with music and interviews...
's 11 Spring Street street art
Street art
Street art is any art developed in public spaces — that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives...
2006 exhibition in NYC. Since the 70s, Fekner has collaborated with John Matos
John Matos
Crash is a graffiti artist. As early as 13, John Matos was spray painting New York City trains, the full image art as opposed to simpler tagging soon transferred to silk screened canvas. He was first noticed through his murals on subway cars and dilapidated buildings, he is now regarded as a...
/Crash, David Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz was a painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist who was prominent in the New York City art world of the 1980s.-Biography:...
, Sandra Seymour, Lady Pink
Lady Pink
Lady Pink is a graffiti artist. She was raised in Queens, New York, and started her graffiti writing career in 1979 following the loss of a boyfriend who had been sent to live in Puerto Rico after he had been arrested. She exorcised her grief by tagging her boyfriend's name across the city...
, Peter Mönnig, A-One, Toxic, Andrew Castrucci, Sasha Sumner, Chris Stain, Josh MacPhee
Josh MacPhee
Josh MacPhee is an artist, curator and activist living in Brooklyn, New York. MacPhee graduated from Oberlin College in 1996 and spent eight years as an artist and activist in Chicago, Illinois where he established a distribution system called justseeds in order get more radical art projects out to...
, Billy Mode and other musicians, writers and new media artists. Fekner was included in Documenta
Documenta
documenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau which took place in Kassel at that time...
7 as part of Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer is an American conceptual artist. Holzer lives and works in Hoosick Falls, New York.-Education:...
's and Stefan Eins
Stefan Eins
Stefan Eins Born in Prague, Bohemia, grew up in Vienna and Gresten, Austria. He settled in New York City in 1967. Eins graduated from the University of Vienna with a degree in Theology and he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1964-1967. He does not distinguish between creating art...
' Fashion Moda
Fashion Moda
Fashion Moda is a cultural concept. As a museum of science, art, invention, technology and fantasy in its South Bronx location from 1978-1993 it combined aspects of a community arts centre and a worldwide progressive arts organization.-History:...
Store, and the Committed To Print exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
.
Music Recordings/Music Videos
Jackson Heights, Queens
Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the Northwestern portion of the borough of Queens in New York, New York, United States. The neighborhood is part of Queens Community Board 3...
who assisted with the outdoor stencil work. In September, Fekner released his first rap/rock 12" EP on his own Vinyl Gridlock record label. The A-side, "2 4 5 7 9 11" had Kwame Monroe, aka Bear 167, a South Bronx graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
artist as the guest rapper; and the B-side featured Dave Santaniello on rock vocals on "Rock Steady". On the Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
, Fekner experimented with early speech synthesis programs, Votrax
Votrax
Votrax International, Inc. , or just Votrax, was a speech synthesis company located in the Detroit, Michigan area from 1971 to about 1996 It began as a division of Federal Screw Works from 1971 to 1973...
and SAM-Software Automatic Mouth
Software Automatic Mouth
Software Automatic Mouth, or SAM, was a speech synthesis program for the early personal computers; developed and sold by Don’t Ask Software and a distant ancestor of PlainTalk found in Mac OS 9. The program was available for non-Macintosh Apple computers , various Atari models and the Commodore 64....
as vocal tracks on "2 4 5 7 9 11" and on his Idioblast album in 1984. In addition to playing keyboards, electronic drums and vocals, he wrote the music and lyrics for the eight songs on the album which featured extensive sampling and tape loops of TV, radio, Native American voices, phone and airport transmissions over rock/rap/hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
beats. Tracks on the album included Travelogue The 80s, I Get Paid To Clap, The Beat, The Sight Of The Child, Wheels Over Indian Trails and Rapicasso, which Fekner also created as a 6' x 12' six-panel painting. Both the painting and song pay homage to Picasso’s The Three Dancers
The Three Dancers
The Three Dancers is a painting by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, painted in June 1925. It is an oil on canvas, 84.8 by 56 in . -Description:...
. Fekner spray painted LCD-style letters on industrial silkscreens to portray three breakdancers, the song’s lyrics acknowledging the work, energy and spirit in breakdancing, rapping and graffiti: "Watch the street, see the modern art, it’s the present and future tied to his heart."
The 12" EP single, "Concrete People/Concrete Concerto", was a music collaboration with Dennis Mann (1950–2008) and Al Belfiore who programmed the Linn LM-1
Linn LM-1
The LM-1 Drum Computer, manufactured by Linn Electronics Inc., was the first drum machine to use digital samples of acoustic drums. Conceived and designed by Roger Linn, it was also one of the first programmable drum machines...
Drum Computer. Fekner recorded at Mann's Monkey Hill Studios from 1983-1989 where the Fatback Band
Fatback Band
The Fatback Band is an American funk and disco band. Most popular in the 1970s and 1980s, The Fatback Band is most known for their Top Ten R&B hits, " Spanish Hustle", "I Like Girls", "Gotta Get My Hands on Some ", and "Backstrokin'"...
, whose "King Tim III (Personality Jock)
King Tim III (Personality Jock)
"King Tim III " is a 1979 song by the Fatback Band from the disco album XII. Released on July 25, 1979, several weeks before "Rapper's Delight" , this song is often cited as the beginning of recorded hip hop...
", considered to be the first commercially released rap single in 1979, were also recording. On both "Concrete People/Concrete Concerto", Fekner worked with musicians Sasha Sumner (sax), Jim Recchione (harmonica), Sandra Seymour (vocals), Sandy Mann (vocals) and Andrew Ruhren (animator and EP cover illustration). Concrete People was a popular dance club video, shown on USA Network NightFlight's Salute to Animation with Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
's "Sledgehammer", Talking Heads
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American New Wave and avant-garde band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison...
"And She Was" and Timbuk 3
Timbuk 3
Timbuk3 was an American post-punk band which released six original studio albums between 1986 and 1995 that were produced by Derrick Vedrani. They are most well known for their Top 20 single "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades"...
's "The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades". "Concrete People" and "The Last Days of Good and Evil" ("Concrete Concerto" soundtrack) both won honorary awards in the Prix Ars Electronica
Prix Ars Electronica
The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the most important yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music...
's Computer Animation
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
category, together with award winner John Lasseter
John Lasseter
John Alan Lasseter is an American animator, director and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is also currently the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering....
for his Luxo Jr.
Luxo Jr.
Luxo Jr. is the first film produced in 1986 by Pixar Animation Studios, following its establishment as an independent film studio. It is a computer-animated short film , demonstrating the kind of things the newly-established company was capable of producing...
and Red's Dream
Red's Dream
Red's Dream is a short film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by John Lasseter, which was released in 1987. To date, this is the only short that has not been attached to one of Pixar's feature films in some form, the only Pixar short to be rendered on the Pixar Image Computer, and...
in 1987 and 1988 respectively. In October 2008, Fekner released a remixed version of his 1984 "Another 4 Years" as "Another 4 Years (Edit/Elect08)" mp3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
download and as a video on Vimeo
Vimeo
Vimeo is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. It was founded by Zach Klein and Jake Lodwick in November 2004...
that includes footage of former President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
campaign visit on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx
South Bronx
The South Bronx is an area of the New York City borough of The Bronx. The neighborhoods of Tremont, University Heights, Highbridge, Morrisania, Soundview, Hunts Point, and Castle Hill are sometimes considered part of the South Bronx....
on August 5, 1980.
Reviews
New York Times art critic John Russell wrote…Fekner is an artist who works not only in New York but with New York. The city in its more disinherited aspects is the raw material with which he has been working ever since he got a studio space in P.S. 1 in Long Island City in 1976 and learned to regard the huge dilapidated building as "an elderly person who has acutely perceived his experience of life." He went on to work outdoors in Queens and in the Bronx in ways that gave point and urgency to places long sunk in despair. With a word or two (Decay, for instance, or Broken Promises), he brought an element of street theater into disaster areas. With a single stenciled phrase (Wheels Over Indian Trails, for instance) he mingled present with past on the side of the Pulaski BridgePulaski Bridge
The Pulaski Bridge in New York City connects Long Island City in Queens to Greenpoint in Brooklyn over Newtown Creek. It was named after Polish military commander and American Revolutionary War fighter Kazimierz Pułaski because of the large Polish-American population in Greenpoint...
near the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. What in other hands might have been vandalism had a salutary effect. People in desolate parts of the city saw more, felt more, thought more and came out of their apathy.
Lucy Lippard in the Village Voice called him "caption writer to the urban environment, ad-man for the opposition."
The Wooster Collective said, "For us, John Fekner's pioneering stencil work is as important to the history of the urban art movement as the work of artists like Haring, Basquiat. It was artists like Fekner, Leicht, Hambleton and others who truly held down the scene back in the early 80's."
Discography
| JOHN FEKNER CITY SQUAD | Year | Format | VINYL GRIDLOCK RECORDS 33 1/3 RPM | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LP | EP | |||
| 2 4 5 7 9 11/Rock Steady (ASCAP) | 1983 | ♦ | VG#10538/10539 | |
| Idioblast 8 songs (ASCAP) | 1984 | ♦ | VG#10541-A/10542-B | |
| Another 4 Years | 1984 | VG#10555 Flexidisc | ||
| Cassette Gazette 9 songs (Same as Idioblast plus E Z Gee Jammin) | 1985 | Audio cassette/Photography book. 62 pages. Produced by Fran Kuzui, Published by B-Sellers, Japan | ||
| I Get Paid To Clap (ASCAP) | 1985 | VG#10569 Flexidisc Released in "Between C & D Between C & D Between C & D was a Lower East Side quarterly literary magazine edited by Joel Rose and Catherine Texier. Though a geographical reference from New York City, Between C & D has also been suggested to mean "between coke and dope", giving an indication of the transgressive content and ethos. Its... " Magazine, NYC |
||
| Concrete People (ASCAP) | 1986 | ♦ | VG#33331/44442 | |
| The Beat (89 Remix) | 1989 | VG#678 Flexidisc | ||
| When The Future Collides With History | 1989 | VG#679 Unreleased-Video soundtrack only. | ||
| Oil Drum Mix (ASCAP) | 1999 | Listed as Final Concerto Oil Drum Mix on David Wojnarowicz-Optic Nerve (CD-ROM). Produced by the Red Hot Organization Red Hot Organization Red Hot Organization is a not-for-profit, 501 3, international organization dedicated to fighting AIDS through pop culture.Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors have contributed to over 15 compilation albums, related television programs and media events to raise... . |
||
| LPEPMP3-Selections (ASCAP) | 2008 | 13 track album release as mp3 available on iTunes Plus. | ||
| Another 4 Years (Edit/Elect08) | 2008 | mp3 available on iTunes ITunes iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.... |
||
Selected bibliography
- Ault, Julie, Alternative Art, New York, 1965-1985. University of Minnesota Press, 2002 ISBN 0-8166-3794-6
- Frank, Peter and McKentie, Micheal New, Used and Improved NY: Abbyville Press, 1987.
- Gumpert, Lynn, Curator, New Work New York at the New Museum, Exhibition catalog essay, January 30-March 25, 1982. p. 12-15
- Howze, Russell, Stencil Nation: Graffiti, Community, and Art, Manic D Press, San Francisco, CA 2008 ISBN 978-1-933149-22-6
- Kahane, Lisa, Do Not Give Way to Evil, Photographs of the South Bronx, 1979-1987, powerHouse books, a Miss Rosen edition, Brooklyn, NY 2008 ISBN 978-1-57687-432-5
- Lacy, Suzanne, Mapping The Terrain, New Genre Public Art, Bay Press, Seattle, WA 1995 ISBN 0-941920-30-5
- Lewisohn Cedar, Street Art: The Graffiti Revolution, Tate Museum, London, England 2008 ISBN 978-1-85437-767-8
- Lippard, Lucy, The Lure of the Local: Sense of Place in a Multicentered SocietyThe Lure of the Local: Sense of Place in a Multicentered SocietyThe Lure of the Local: Sense of Place in a Multicentered Society is a 1997 study of the sense of place, by American author and 1968 Guggenheim Fellowship winner Lucy Lippard. The phrase, coined by Lippard, in this study refers to a sense of place that an individual can have about where he lives, or...
, The New Press, NY 1997, ISBN 1-56584-247-2 - Lippard, Lucy, Get The Message-A Decade Of Social Change, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 1985 ISBN # 0525242562
- Taylor, Marvin J., Gumpert, Lynn, The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene 1974-1984, Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2005, ISBN 069112286-5
External links
- John Fekner website
- BLK River, Vienna Austria John Fekner & Don Leicht/The Stanley Cup is missing
- Another 4 Years (Edit/Elect08)
- Don Leicht website
- Wooster Collective
- Idioblast Sound Clips
- Prix Ars Electronica
- Museum of Modern Art Online DADABASE
- Detective Show, Gorman Park, Jackson Heights, NY 1978
- Best 25 Urban Decay Photographers
- John Fekner's Cash for Clunkers slide show
- Hyperallergic "The Emergence of Real Pop Art: Jeffrey Deitch & Street Art"