Author Archives: FA-Q Art

The art-punk firestorm of the Rivington School – in pictures – TheGuardian.com

A new book documents the wild energy of the Rivington School, a collective of New Yorkers who carved an industrial niche out of the rapidly Read more …

Rivington School: 80s New York Underdround Book Launch by Printed Matter

Rivington School: 80s New York Underground Book Launch

Rivington School: 80s New York Underground documents the work of the Rivington School group of artists that emerged during the turbulent 1980s in the heart of the Lower East Side. The Rivington School gave rise to a number of highly regarded artists, including FA-Q (Kevin Wendall).

Van Der Plas Gallery

The Sound of Color @ Van Der Plas Gallery

The Van Der Plas Gallery will host a one-night show this Saturday, October 29, 2016 featuring works by iconic artists and musicians that dominated New York’s music scene in the ’70s and ’80s.

LADADA 2 at Van Der Plas Gallery, 2016

LADADA 2 @ Van Der Plas Gallery

Totally dissident, FA-Q said, “We were against commercial art, and against capitalism, championing art for people.”

LADADA at Van Der Plas Gallery, 2016

LADADA @ Van Der Plas Gallery

Rooted in the Dada art movement, LADADA has blossomed on the LES at the Van Der Plas Gallery. LADADA, is a group show featuring Shalom Neuman, Kevin Wendall and Konstantin Bokov.

Lift Trucks Project

FA-Q, Art’s Hard Man, The Weekly Standard

I believe capitalism corrupts culture.

In and Out at Van Der Plas Gallery

In & Out @ Van Der Plas Gallery

In & Out brings together the work of visionary and outsider artists. Art created intuitively with unstoppable passion. Kevin Wendall, the artist known as FA-Q, releases through his process of expressing. Addiction and inner demons narrate his art’s rough expression of emotion.

Paper Trails at Van Der Plas Gallery

Paper Trails @ Van Der Plas Gallery

Paper was originally developed by the Egyptians over 5000 years ago from a marsh grass called Cyperous Papyrus, which was cut in to strips and softened with the muddy waters of the Nile. Paper is, in fact, one of the most popular materials with which to fabricate art.

East Village-Vanished Landmark-NYC The Gas Station & Junk Tower

It was managed by Linus Coraggio, and made by an artist collective of sculptors called the Rivington School.

A Final Farewell to FA-Q

A final farewell to FA-Q

Artist Kevin Wendall, known as FA-Q (pronounced, “fack you”), left, died Nov. 15 at age 55.

Untitled, Prison Life, November 1996

FA-Q, Art’s Hard Man, The Weekly Standard

Art is a compulsion, I have to do it, and it’s like breathing, no, more than that

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FA-Q by Pirtola

The history of FA-Q began on toilet walls and evolved to street, public walls from 1978 until…starting where I was born Cleveland, Ohio and ending all over the world.

Memorial Service for Kevin Wendall

The Remembrance of Life of Kevin Wendall

His year long arts were exhibited along with slide shows of Kevin at work and all of them were shared and cherished again by the legendary local artists from Rivington School movement.

Memorial Service for Kevin Wendall

Memorial Service for Kevin Wendall aka FA-Q

We could all use a good laugh, and Kevin was always the first to make that happen, either by telling nonsensical stories or by the goofy faces he loved to make.

Untitled, Prison Life, November 1996

FA-Q, Prison Life Magazine

The drawings that I do in jail, I wasn’t on any drugs, it’s an escape. A lot of crazy shit happens in there, you know?

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The Ex-Vandals Exhibition

FA-Q had notoriously been part of legendary Rivington School, and was known for his graffiti, street art and painting. Wendall’s art thus provides a link that transcends time and place, visualizing movements of a global culture, and in this case charts the arrival of graffiti into Finland

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The World is a Face: The Art of FA-Q

What is surprising about the painter, Fa-Q, is that he draws nothing but faces. Although FA-Q lost his baby daughter (1990) and ended up in prison after becoming addicted to drugs, I don’t think that the shock of her death is the reason why he started drawing faces or his own portraits in prison.

Stinking Outside the Box at 49 Bogart St

Stinkin Outside the Box @ 49 Bogart St.

“Stinkin outside the box” September 22 – October 12, 2006 at 49 Bogart st. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 11206.

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Kevin Wendall AKA FA-Q, Van Der Plas Gallery

Kevin Wendall aka FA-Q’s “proper” art career started in New York. He was a graffiti artist in the 70’s and 80’s who changed billboards and advertisements, scraping out letters to give them new meanings. By the mid-80s he was a rising star, selling his art for high prices.

Kevin Wendall, FA-Q Art

Art’s Hard Man, Weekly Standard

“Art is a compulsion, I have to do it, and it’s like breathing, no, more than that,” he continues. “Art is the most positive thing I can do, and one of the great things about it is that it doesn’t hurt anyone.”

Kevin Wendall, FA-Q Art

FA-Q by Luciano Caprile

FA-Q is is an omnivorous artist: he consumes all the colors; he hurls himself at every space. He paints in a hurry: he’s a convinced exponent of “fast painting” which is also a type of behavior, a way of life (or non-life).

Cover, Prison Life, November 1996

The Art of FA-Q, Prison Life Magazine

When I met him in 1987, he’d never been to prison. Then he was a rising star in the art world, getting as much as $2,500 for a painting he could do in a day. He was a star, a rough genius in the art hotbed that centered around the Lower East Side of New York City.

FA-Q and Ray Kelly show off their Rivington School six o'clocks, at the New Rivington Sculpture Garden, Prison Life, November 1996. Photo by John Ittner

A Conversation with FA-Q, Prison Life Magazine

John: What are those heads all about that you draw?
FA-Q: I just doodle around and see what comes out. A lot of times they say that the work looks like the artist.

Untitled, Prison Life, November 1996

FA-Q, Art’s Hard Man, The Weekly Standard

We were against commercial art, and against capitalism, championing art for people with no money,

Genitrification, Screw, December, 1984

Genitrification, Screw

The vaguely Haring-esque cartoon pictured everybody’s post modernist darling in in flagrante delicto with an anatomically overburdened (having both tits and cock) gallery owner.