Fekner's has created paintings, cast paper reliefs, video, music recordings and performance works, sculpture, photography and computer-generated work. Fekner has addressed issues involving concepts of perception and transformation, as well as specific environmental and sociological concerns such as urban decay, greed, chemicalpollutants, mass media and Native American Indians.[1]
Early life
Fekner began writing poetry as a young teenager, and his first outdoor graffiti in 1968 were the words Itchycoo Park painted at Gorman Park 85th Street Park in Jackson Heights, Queens. Along with his accomplices 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 1970s. 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, Len Bellinger, Lucio Pozzi, Lou Forgione, Richard Artschwager, Frances Hynes, Karen Shaw and Claudia De Monte hid art and created subtle art work in situ throughout the park.
Stencil works
In 1976, Fekner began to spray paint temporary messages onto buildings in New York City using hand-cut cardboard stencils and spray paint. First seen on the industrial streets and highways of Queens, the East River bridges, and later in the South Bronx, his signs (such as Industrial Fossil, Urban Decay and Decay/Abandoned) were spray painted in areas that were in need of construction, demolition or reconstruction. The projects succeeded when the existing condition was removed or remedied.[2]
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.[3] I
In 1982, Fekner curated From The Monkey To The Monitor which featured his NOTV4U2C wall mural and audio loop installation, Don Leicht's metal Space Invaders, Fred Baca's drawings and a live performance by Phoebe Legere.
In 1968, he painted the words Itchycoo Park in large white letters on an empty building in Gorman Park, New York.[4]
In 1978, he curated the Detective Show at the same outdoor location in Queens which included the words street museum on the invitational card.[5] 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.[6]
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 Streetstreet art 2006 exhibition in NYC.
Music projects / Idioblast
In 1983, Fekner formed his own band City Squad 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' × 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."[8] On Earth Day 1990, Fekner painted over it.[9]
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 Bridge 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.[10]
Lucy Lippard in the Village Voice called him "caption writer to the urban environment, ad-man for the opposition."[11]
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 1980s."[12]
Idioblast is an album by an American artist John Fekner, recorded and released in 1984 under the name John Fekner City Squad. In addition to playing keyboards, electronic drums and vocals, Fekner wrote and composed the music and lyrics for the eight songs on the album. Idioblast, released on Fekner's own independent record labelVinyl Gridlock Records, is an experimental and eclectic mix of songs featuring extensive sampling and tape loops of TV, radio, Native American voices, phone and airport controller transmissions over rock, rap and hip-hop beats.
Background
In 1983, the Walker Arts Center and Minneapolis College of Art and Design presented a joint exhibition entitled When Words Become Works. Invited by Diane Shamash, director of MCAD gallery, Fekner agreed to create two new songs specifically for the show to be released as a 12" 33 1/3 rpm EP limited-edition vinyl record under the name of "John Fekner City Squad." The A-side, 2 4 5 7 9 11 featured Kwame Monroe, a.k.a. Bear 167, a South Bronx graffiti artist as the guest rapper. 2 4 5 7 9 11 opens by beautifully incorporating the "I'm-as-mad-as-hell-and-I'm-not-gonna-take-it-anymore" dialogue from the movie Network. Vocals are shared by Fekner, Sandra Seymour and the late Bear 167. It is a high energy rap songs about turning off the television and finding out that "what life is all about is right here on the block."[13]
Recording
Fekner recording tracks in 1983 and 1984 with his fellow musicians Dennis Mann, Sandra Seymour, Jim Recchione, Paul Sottnick, Robert Morales, Richard Maffei and Steve Grivas, releasing Idioblast in May 1984. Fekner, who was not trained as a musician, would use whatever tools were necessary when composing his music on electronic keyboards and drum machines. He experimented and extensively utilized Votrax and Software Automatic Mouth(SAM), two new text Speech synthesis programs for personal computers. Besides the main vocals and instruments, all the other aural information on the album was recorded on an inexpensive Walkman. “Sophisticated equipment isn't that much of a necessity,” says Fekner.[13]
Theme
Most of the lyrics on Idioblast focus on concepts that Fekner addresses in his outdoor spray-painted messages seen in New York and other cities in Canada, England, Sweden and Germany. Like the stenciled messages, most of lyrics are slanted ideologically to the left and serve as warnings about corporate media, television, toxic wastes and other social issues. "Virtually every tune on the album is based on the Street Art experience. In a tune called Rapicasso Fekner raps, "Musicians were painting, painters were playing/ Styles were blending like the current trends...Watch the street see the modern art/ It's present and future tied to his heart."[13] Fekner parades a series of found sounds, approximate rap, beat poetry and quick-cut imagery against a steady, pre-fab pulse. But unlike the worst cases of art-rock hybrids where the pretentious intent overwhelms the medium, Idioblast sounds good, beat box or not.[14]
Track listing
Side one
No.
Title
Writer(s)
Lead vocals/voice
Length
1.
"Halley's Comet/Rapicasso"
J. Fekner
J. Fekner
6:08
2.
"The Beat"
J. Fekner
D. Santaniello
3:32
3.
"Travelogue The 80's"
J. Fekner
Recorded sound/voices loops
9:19
Side two
No.
Title
Writer(s)
Lead vocals/voice
Length
1.
"2 4 5 7 9 11"
J. Fekner
Bear 167, J. Fekner, S. Seymour
6:26
2.
"I Get Paid To Clap"
J. Fekner
J. Fekner, S. Seymour
4:34
3.
"The Sight Of The Child"
J. Fekner James Recchione
A. Lelcht
2:12
4.
"Wheels Over Indian Trails"
J. Fekner D. Santaniello
D. Santaniello
4:23
Total length:
36:34
Reviews
Upon its release, Idioblast was popular among Club DJ's, college radio stations and independent music pools, receiving good reviews via CMJ and Rockpool music magazines. In her review In Stroll Magazine, Susan Orlean wrote, "Idioblast offers plenty to chew on, both mentally and rhythmically. The rough sound and production do not detract from music that is basically tuneful and engaging, and images that are vivid.” [14]
Selected bibliography
Stencil Projects 1978–1979, Lund & New York (Edition Sellem, 1979) ISBN91-85260-14-2
↑ Mirapaul, Matthew "A Brush, a Mouse, a Canvas: Mixing Paint and Pixels" New York Times . New York, N.Y.: June 13, 2001. p. H15 (1 page).
↑ Rapicasso from the album Idioblast Vinyl Gridlock Records 10541-A, ASCAP. 1984–2007 Words and Music by John Fekner/Courtesy Estate of John Fekner/Drama Design Music Publishing Company, ASCAP all rights reserved.
Ault, Julie; Collective, Social Text; Center, Drawing (2002). Alternative Art, New York, 1965-1985 A Cultural Politics Book for the Social Text Collective. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN978-0-8166-3794-2.
Edlin, Jay (2011). Graffiti 365. Harry N Abrams Incorporated. ISBN978-0-8109-9744-8.
Frank, Peter; McKenzie, Michael (1987). New, used & improved art for the 80's. Abbeville Press. ISBN978-0-89659-650-4.
Gumpert, Lynn, Curator, New Work New York at the New Museum, Exhibition catalog essay, January 30 – March 25, 1982. p.12–15
Howze, Russell (2008). Stencil Nation Graffiti, Community, and Art. Manic d Press. ISBN978-1-933149-22-6.
Kahane, Lisa; Frank, Peter; Ahearn, John (2008). Do not give way to evil photographs of the South Bronx, 1979-1987. Miss Rosen Editions. ISBN978-1-57687-432-5.
Lippard, Lucy R. (1997). The Lure of the Local Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society. New Press. ISBN978-1-56584-247-2.
Lippard, Lucy, Get The Message-A Decade Of Social Change, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 1985 ISBN0525242562
Taylor, Marvin, Lynn Gumpert, Bernard Gendron, Roselee Goldberg, Carlo McCormick, Robert Siegle, Brian Wallis, and Matthew Yokobosky. (2006). The Downtown Book The New York Art Scene, 1974-1984. ISBN0-691-12286-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Graffiti is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire.
Stencilling produces an image or pattern on a surface by applying pigment to a surface through an intermediate object, with designed holes in the intermediate object. The holes allow the pigment to reach only some parts of the surface creating the design. The stencil is both the resulting image or pattern and the intermediate object; the context in which stencil is used makes clear which meaning is intended. In practice, the (object) stencil is usually a thin sheet of material, such as paper, plastic, wood or metal, with letters or a design cut from it, used to produce the letters or design on an underlying surface by applying pigment through the cut-out holes in the material.
Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist, and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique. His works of political and social commentary have appeared on streets, walls, and bridges throughout the world. His work grew out of the Bristol underground scene, which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. Banksy says that he was inspired by 3D, a graffiti artist and founding member of the musical group Massive Attack.
Beat Street is a 1984 American dance drama film featuring New York City hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Set in the South Bronx, the film follows the lives of a pair of brothers and their group of friends, all of whom are devoted to various elements of early hip hop culture, including breakdancing, DJing and graffiti.
Spray paint is paint that comes in a sealed, pressurized container and is released in an aerosol spray when a valve button is depressed. The propellant is what the container of pressurized gas is called. When the pressure holding the gas is released through the valve, the aerosol paint releases as a fine spray. Aerosol painting is one form of spray painting; it leaves a smooth, even coat, unlike many traditional rolled and brushed paints. Aerosol primer can be applied directly to bare metal and many plastics.
Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art.
Stencil graffiti is a form of graffiti that makes use of stencils made out of paper, cardboard, or other media to create an image or text that is easily reproducible. The desired design is cut out of the selected medium and then the image is transferred to a surface through the use of spray paint or roll-on paint.
Lady Pink, born Sandra Fabara, is an Ecuadorian-born American graffiti and mural artist, active in New York City.
Civilian is the pseudonym of Tom Civil a street artist, operating out of Melbourne, Australia, who has been profiled as a "leading player" of "the city's vibrant stencil art scene".
Meek is a notable street artist operating out of Melbourne, Australia, and specialising in the subgenre of stencil graffiti.
Since the 1980s, the area surrounding the Sydney inner west suburb of Newtown, Australia, including the suburbs of Newtown, Enmore, Erskineville, Camperdown and St Peters, has been known for its wide range of prominent graffiti and street art on walls. The public visual art in the Newtown area consists of a variety of styles and methods of execution, including large-scale painted murals, hand-painted political slogans, hand-painted figurative designs, spray painted semi-abstract designs "tags"), and other stylistic developments such as stencil art and street poster art, "Yarn bombing", and sculptural items cast from plaster and other materials.
Dean Stockton, better known by his alias D*Face, is an English multimedia street artist who uses spray paint, stickers, posters, and stencils.
Tats Cru, Inc. is a group of Bronx-based graffiti artists turned professional muralists. The current members of Tats Cru are Bio, BG183,FEVER, Nicer, HOW, and NOSM. Tats Cru were founded by Brim, Bio, BG183 and Nicer.
Graffiti are writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings. Graffiti, consisting of the defacement of public spaces and buildings, remains a nuisance issue for cities.
Don Leicht was a visual artist who worked as a painter and sculptor in the Bronx, New York City for over forty years. Leicht had one person exhibitions in New York, Sweden and (Germany) and was an early figure in the New York City downtown scene in the 1970s, and in the subsequent Street Art and Graffiti movements.
Graffiti in New York City has had a substantial local, national, and international influence.
A1one is the pseudonym of Karan Reshad, an Iranian visual artist who pioneered graffiti and street art in Iran. His career as a street artist began in his hometown Tehran.
Better Out Than In was a residency undertaken by the pseudonymous graffiti artist and political activist Banksy in New York City during October 2013. Banksy unveiled at least one work of art daily, documenting it on both a dedicated website and an Instagram account. The majority of the works were stencil graffiti and chiefly political, a distinctive characteristic of Banksy. Other pieces and multimedia exhibits toyed with dark humor and satire.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
