Research Archive

John Fekner and Don Leicht were invited to participate in the outdoor street exhibition Welling Court Mural Project organized by Ad Hoc Art in Queens, NY. After a preliminary visit to the site, they decided to paint on a wall directly facing the Two Coves Community Garden and the NYCHA Astoria Houses Development.  The location of their collaborative site-specific work was important for two reasons: not only did it connect with the communities’ thriving volunteer-run urban garden; it also provided a platform to address the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Read the rest of this entry »

A few days before the start of National Park Week and the 40th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22nd, a major volcanic eruption in Iceland occurred. Whether it’s Mother Nature as in this case or man-made induced, these disruptions to our daily life create a moment to pause and contemplate the possible catastrophic impact on civilization and future generations. Read the rest of this entry »

Press Review and Catalog Essay Read the rest of this entry »

John Fekner Exhibition Statement

Following statement was written on the occasion of the first solo exhibition at Hundred Acres Gallery, Soho NY October 1974 Read the rest of this entry »

How It Began

In 1968, Fekner enters the undergraduate Fine Arts program at New York Institute of Technology. He studies with a number of artists who are associated with 55 Mercer co-opt that opens in 1969. Fekner becomes an assistant to Martin Bressler, a teacher and artist who has a studio on the Bowery. Fekner is attracted to the raw loft spaces and cast-iron architecture of Soho, as well as the rebellious work of the artists involved with 112 Green Street, which has a significant impact on his subsequent move to outdoor work. Read the rest of this entry »

John Fekner & John Crash Matos

John Crash Matos, a graffiti artist, and I collaborated on a project entitled THE SUFFOLK STREET FALLOUT SHELTER. The mural, painted on an abandoned building on the Lower East Side, depicts a nuclear bomb exploding in the New York City. A stenciled warning in English and Spanish reads: IN CASE OF NUCLEAR WAR STEP INSIDE/EN CASO DE GUERRA NULCEAR ENTREN. Read the rest of this entry »

90 construction site poles painted fluorescent orange
United States Pavilion demolition area
1964/1965 New York World’s Fair
Flushing Meadow-Corona Park, Queens, NY

Read the rest of this entry »

Fekner visits Fashion Moda in 1979 which leads to his installation of NO TV/READ which is simultaneously shown at P. S. 1 and Galerie S:t Petri -Archive of Experimental and Marginal Art in Lund, Sweden. In the window of Fashion Moda, Fekner creates an installation with a TV set, a stenciled logo and a statement in both English and Spanish in February 1980. Read the rest of this entry »

“As a painter, act as the eye of the community, for the community.”

“In the 70s, I made a conscious choice of changing the formal aesthetics I was taught in art school. No longer interested in working within the spatial restrictions of a white canvas, I embraced the outdoors, reducing the value of an art object to that of a shared visual experience for the general public. At the same time, the formal ‘blankness’ of a typical gallery, devoid of any distinctive character, no longer held interest for me.”

Read the rest of this entry »

In the summer of 1985 without a studio to work in, John Fekner turned a Sunday painter using his car as a traveling studio and setup shop at a few of his favorite locations alongside a highway in Queens and a parkway in the Bronx. Fekner said it was the best place to work outside without being disturbed; no phone calls, only the birds and the whizzing of cars and trucks. A favorite spot was under the Long Island Expressway at the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway exit where he previously spray painted Trees, Toxic, and RUA Vidiot?

Read the rest of this entry »