John Fekner
Just John ... and so on
John Fekner is considered one of the most "famous unfamous" artists working in New York in the late 1970s and 1980s. He set his urban poetry to music, then transformed the words into stark public phrases, which, in journalistic typography, flooded like graffiti onto the buildings of a decaying metropolis that was beginning to be swallowed up by gentrification. He was part of the vibrant New York art scene of the time, exhibiting alongside Keith Haring, David Wojnarowicz, Jenny Holzer and others, and as one of the first Space Invaders, in tandem with Don Leicht, he took over the Bronx with the distinctive motifs of the computer game of the same name.
The documentary retrospective exhibition of John Fekner (1950, New York) at the Match Gallery will reveal the diverse layers of sixty years of his rich but overlooked artistic legacy, and perhaps even touch on his family roots in a segment. Interestingly, before World War I, John's father Ivan Fekner was born in Ljubljana, on Karlovška Street, not far from our gallery.
Fekner never limited his work to a single art form. His poetry of street art turned into video projects, animations, sculptures and public actions. For example, Fekner's Warning Signs, a graffiti crusade from the 1970s, not only crowned the dangerous decay of New York, but also seeded the emerging culture of hip-hop through the beginnings of street art.
In a world obsessed with technical visuals, Fekner has been and continues to be involved with mass media control, digital addiction, corporate greed and chemical environmental devastation, while raising public awareness of the indigenous peoples who lived but were displaced and erased from the greater New York area.
Despite all this, Fekner has remained more or less anonymous by choice. That's just the way John is - Just John ... and so on*.
*the title of the exhibition derives from the common colloquialism of ending what is said with ... and so on, to suggest what else might be said on a particular topic, or to read into the unspoken
On this exhibition we are collaborating with Brad Downey, documentary filmmaker and archivist of Fekner's artistic legacy.
Location
Trg francoske revolucije 7
1000 Ljubljana
T +386 1 24 12 590
T +386 1 24 12 500
E galerija.vzigalica@mgml.si
Opening hours
Tuesday–Sunday: 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
Monday: Closed
1 January, 1 November, 25 December: Closed
24 and 31 December: 10 a.m.–2 p.m.
Tickets
Free entry.
