John Fekner's works are supposed to taregt buildings that are no longer taken care of by the government. Is his works justified then? Even though it too can be see as damage to public property?

- I think his works are justified. Since the old buildings were orginally no longer taken care by the government and no one usually pay attention to them, but after adding the graffiti works on the building, it catches people's attention. Although the reason why people/ the government paid attention to the buildings might seen as damages, it still catches people's attention. His artwork has the power to make people think about the artwork and the meaning behind it. One of the advantage of putting artworks on old buildings might be even more effective or eye catching than normal artworks where they just display it, since people will try to think and connect about the old buildings and artworks, and think about why would the artist put the work on old buildings..etc. 

 

Do you think his arts', such as XAMERICANX, messages are shown clearly or is it difficult to understand?

- I think the artworks are easy to understand since most of the artworks has a word or a phrase that represents the main idea of the artwork. For example, XAMERICANX represents enviromental disasters and looming annihilation which i think 'toxic' on the artwork can clearly shows that it's on the negative side. The dark and gloomy mood and colors on the artwork can also tells that might represents despair, death..etc. The colors and words on the artwork can clearly represents the meaning behind it to me and i think it will be easy to understand the meaning. His other artwork South Bronx: August 1980 clearly shows the meaning behind the artwork. Since it's on an old and dilapidated building, and the phase that says 'falsas promesas' and 'broken promises' will easily bring attention for audiences to understand that he wants them to pay attention to inadequate housing, poor services and deplorable social problems that has been afflicting the neigborhood residents for decades already.