King Mob

The Negation and Transcendence of Art

Dave Wise, Stuart Wise

• Publisher: BPC Ebooks
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781919342528
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

Twin brothers David and Stuart Wise, as art students in mid-1960s Newcastle, immersed themselves the radical ideas of Icteric ('the often confusedly anti-art magazine'). The Wises participated in the saving and restoration of Kurt Schwitters' Lakeland Merz Barn, and organised a controversial commemoration of the Russian Futurist, Kazimir Malevich. The documents in this book, written over a 50-year period, describe these and subsequent efforts by the Wises to subvert the 'recuperation' of 'art' into the capitalist culture industry.
In reflection on their engagements with like-minded radicals - the English and French Situationists, New York's Black Mask collective, the London-based King Mob, and more recent formations - the authors consider how and why the Revolution 'due to unforeseen circumstances' did not take place. They also analyze the recuperation of radical aesthetic ideas in the works of latter-day chancers like Damian Hurst and Banksy.

Table of contents

• Introduction
• King Mob. Nosotros, el Partido del Diablo was published in 2015. It came about as a result of correspondence with Servando Rocha and the publishers La Felquera in Madrid and the Canaries, who had requested information on King Mob and those times long gone. For once we felt the presence of intelligent probing, cutting through the crap. Normally we wouldn't have responded to such requests, as over the past decades most of them have been on the lines of requesting journalistic interviews or concerned with aspects of image/media rebellion we have no interest in whatsoever.
• 3 - The 1970 Situationist Reorientation Debate
• 4 - Nietzsche, Wagner and the Theatricalisation of Music
• 5 - KURT SCHWITTERS’ BARN: A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
• 8 - ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK(SY)
• SOME REFLECTIONS...