Early Street Stencil Pioniers in the US 1969-85 - Abstract and Introduction

Sep 15, 2026

Uploaded by Ben

The text examines the emergence and development of stencil graffiti as an academic research topic, tracing key early pioneers in the United States from 1969 to 1985. It highlights how Chaz Bojórquez pioneered a visual signature tag in Los Angeles, while John Fekner combined conceptual and activist approaches through warning sign stencils. It also connects related stencil practices in early 1980s New York with David Wojnarowicz and Alex Vallauri, emphasizing modular compositions and historical roots.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time3 min

AccessFree to download

1-Introduction

Academic discipline and historical focus

2-Early Street Stencil Pioniers in the US 1969-85

2.1-Chaz Bojórquez-Using a Stencil as Visual Signature Tag

2.2 - John Fekner – Warning Sign Stencils Between Concept Art And Activism

Early Street Stencil Pioniers in the US 1969-85: Bojórquez, Fekner, Wojnarowicz and Vallauri Ulrich Blanché Dept. of European Art History (IEK), Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Germany Abstract Independent from New York Style writing graffiti Chaz Bojórquez invented the visual signature tag in Los Angeles in 1969. Like John Fekner in New York from 1976 onwards he created rather road art than street art, stencils for car drivers in the urban outskirts. Fekner mixed conceptual art and activist art in his few word poetry warning sign stencils on car wrecks and industrial ruins. Like Bojórguez also David Wojnarowicz and Alex Vallauri used visual signature stencil tags in early 1980ies New York. Both, Vallauri and Wojnoarowicz, also used smaller stencils in a modular way to create larger mixed freehand/ stencil compositions. Keywords Stencil, template, street art, USA, New York City, Los Angeles, Chaz Bojórquez, John Fekner, Alex Vallauri, David Wojnarowicz, Burning House, Acrobat, Senior Suerte, Decay, Random Dates 1-Introduction The Emergence of street art research as an academic discipline goes hand in hand with the tendency to look back, to the roots of street art, historically and technically. With 25 years of using stencils by the most known street artist Banksy in 2020, it is time to go back even further and focus on the history of stencil graffiti. This essay is a short summary of some chapters in my forthcoming book Street Art History of Stencils, which I plan to publish in 2022. The first street art pioneer to stencil self-authorized directly on public walls was not Blek le Rat, but his fellow Frenchman Ernest Pignon-Ernest in 1966. A few years later, 1969-and independent from Pignon-Ernest-was the beginning of illicit street art stenciling also in the US. I will briefly touch upon L.A. stencil exception Chaz Bojórquez (*1949) before I switch to New York‘s stencil high time before the mid 1980ies. Although there were many otherstencilists active in New York City in the period 1969-85, most notably Christoph Kohlhofer (*1940), Eric Drooker (*1958) or Anton van Dalen (*1938) working between political street art, concept art, pop art and lofi do-ityourself punk attitude, I will focus on John Fekner (*1950), David Wojnarowicz (1954-92) and Alex Vallauri (1949- 87) as for all of them, at least for a period of time, street stenciling was their main artistic output. 2-Early Street Stencil Pioniers in the US 1969-85 2.1-Chaz Bojórquez-Using a Stencil as Visual Signature Tag Charles “Chaz” Bojórquez, was already a trained artist when he became the first US artist who took his stencil work directly to the street. He had a similar outsider role for a while in the US than Pignon-Ernest in France. In 1969, and only in (East) Los Angeles, Bojórquez used a single stencil motif, because he otherwise made MexicanAmerican calligraphy, so-called Cholo graffiti. As a MexicanAmerican local artist, his contribution to street art history was not much known before 1995, when he participated in the Los Angeles graffiti video documentary “Graffiti Verite”(Bryan, 1995). Bojórquez called his stenciled tag “Señor Suerte” or literally translated “Mr. Lucky” which he spray-painted for the first time to a stairway pillar atthe Arroyo Seca Parkway in 1969 (fig. 1). His visual stencil tag was cut from thick plastic foil (Columbus and Deitch, 2011, 147-153). Bojórquez created Señor Suerte as an alter ego of himself at that time: „I’m part Hollywood, I’m part hippie, and I’m part chicano“(Bennett and Lir, 2018). Señor Suerte was a slightly smiling human skull from the Mexican Day of the Dead (Bojórquez’chicano part), his bone hand holds his fingers crossed which made him Mr. Lucky. The artist adapted this hand posture from a hand holding a cigarette of which it still reminds. The skull wears a broad-brimmed fedora hat anda fur collar, recalling a stereotypical Afro American movie character (part Hollywood),“pimp daddy fr

FAQs

What time range does the document focus on for early stencil pioneers in the US?

The document focuses on early stencil pioneer activity in the United States from 1969 to 1985.

How did Chaz Bojórquez approach stencil graffiti in Los Angeles in 1969?

Bojórquez used a single stencil motif as a visual signature tag, spray-painted on public infrastructure in (East) Los Angeles starting in 1969.

What distinguishes John Fekner’s stencil messages from purely decorative street art?

Fekner’s stencils function as warning sign messages that blend conceptual art with activist intentions, conveying political or social alerts rather than only aesthetics.

Sep 15, 2026

Uploaded by Ben