The Null Device

Bad boys of the London art scene

The latest troublemaker of the London art world is some calling himself AK47, who claims to be an international "arto-political movement" named "Art Kaida".
He also claimed that AK47 was a rapidly growing international "arto-political movement", but was vague about the membership, saying only that it had "a lot", and adding: "It's not about members, it's about believing. Believe, and you're in.

(Which, to me, translates as either "it's just one bloke", or "it's just one bloke and a bunch of variously deranged hangers-on".)

Anyway, AK47 recently took responsibility for stealing a pink neon sign called Just Love Me, by celebrated angstmonger Tracey Emin, from outside the Hackney Empire theatre, sometime after filching a sculpture by yesterday's aesthetic terrorist bad-boy Banksy. (Does this mean that Banksy is now safe and accepted and conventional?)

Asked to explain his motives further, he said it was "an act of terrorism" and he was posing the question, "What is terrorism?"

("Ooo! Look at me, I'm a *TERRORIST*!" Wanker, more like it. For one, that sort of posturing, stealing a Tracey Emin neon sign and calling it terrorism, cheapens the whole idea of terrorism as art. What would Andre Breton, who said that the archetypal Surrealist act would consist of "going into the street, revolver in hand, and shooting at random into the crowd", say about Mr. AK47's oh-so-scary "terrorist" outrages?)

Now if Mr. AK47 wants to be really hardcore, he should come to Melbourne and steal one of Chopper Read's paintings.

There are 10 comments on "Bad boys of the London art scene":

Posted by: El Bizarro http://bizarro.typepad.com Sun Jun 20 08:57:31 2004

Now really, the best thing to do with any new age Birtish art wanker is to just ignore them. Now he's going to be googling his pathetic little moniker and gettting all hot and bothered to find someone actually gave a toss.

It was a Somali militia member who once told me that AK stood for African Killer. Pity it doesn't also stand for (poncey public school drop out) Artist Killer.

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Sun Jun 20 10:18:31 2004

Yes, but ignoring them isn't as much fun...

Posted by: Graham http://grudnuk.com/ Sun Jun 20 13:22:04 2004

Art crime makes me laugh.

Posted by: ak47 http:// Mon Jun 21 11:04:46 2004

so you missed the fuckin point you thick twats this is about the humourism. in it it is taking the piss when we returned the emin which is reported to be broken(sounds like an insurance scam coming up as the Empire need the cash) why would we return it with two bunches of flowers one with seven white roses and one with four and cards in each bunch one saying "SORRY" and "IN DEEPEST SYMPATHY think about it as for a single person well aaron barshack was one of the for runners of the movement

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Mon Jun 21 14:48:19 2004

And how does this differ from the sort of thing drunk university students do routinely, only without claiming to be radical artistic iconoclasts?

Posted by: Graham http://grudnuk.com/ Tue Jun 22 01:59:57 2004

To quote El Bizarro: "Now really, the best thing to do with any new age Birtish art wanker is to just ignore them. Now he's going to be googling his pathetic little moniker and gettting all hot and bothered to find someone actually gave a toss."

Posted by: JoHannaH http://www.artkieda.com Fri Jul 2 12:52:30 2004

AK47 knows what he is doing, or rather he doesn't, which is more fun in the end. If he doesn't know where he's going, he'll probably get there. You are missing the point completely. Well done. Greetings from Yorkshire.

Posted by: prodigal_nt http://www.projectz.org Mon Jan 24 01:27:25 2005

Judging by the content of this blog, it's safe to assume that you're some form of high functioning mutant, unfortunately too rare to kill.

It comes as little surprise to me that such a humourless individual fails to realise what's actually going on.

Oh and as for this classic quote

"Now he's going to be googling his pathetic little moniker and gettting all hot and bothered to find someone actually gave a toss."

well, all I can say is 'Do you actually know how the internet works ?'

Googling 'ak47' is hardly likely to lead to this piss ant backwater, is it now ?

In summary, all I can say is ;

If nothing else, the fact that you felt strongly enough to post these tirades of utter verbage, means that the Emin action touched you in some way.

Posted by: Graham http://grudnuk.com/ Tue Jan 25 00:59:50 2005

I do love it when people accuse others of the condition they themselves are afflicted with.

Posted by: dj http://deej.bah.id.au Tue Jan 25 04:21:15 2005

'tis often the case!