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 »

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 »

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.”

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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?

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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.

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Group Show @ PS1

That Was Then…This Is Now

June 22 – September 24 2008
Organized by P.S.1 Director Alanna Heiss

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David Wojnarowicz was a special person. It was a pleasure to collaborate with him on a few projects including the painting Toxic Junky.

David was unique, intense and extremely generous. He was a sharing and supportive artist in every aspect of the collaborative process. Whatever the final outcome might be; a painting, a stencil and spray painted found object or a sound recording. David had integrity and was miles above other artists of the period.

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1977-1979
Black and White+8mm 14 min. (collaboration with Fred Baca)

John Fekner began experimenting with video and audio, working with Fred Baca on Environmental Stencils 77-79, a grainy, grim, raw, b&w 8mm film/video that not only documents Fekner’s stencil projects, but is also a bleak portrait of New York City in ruins.

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These 2 short conceptual videos are part of the Glitches series, made by John Fekner in 2002.

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