Exhibition
James Cauty - A Riot in a Jam Jar - L-13 Light Industrial Workshop
The works are by the anarchist artist and musician, James Cauty, who gained notoriety for burning a million pounds in cash in 1994 with Bill Drummond, his bandmate in The KLF, one of the most successful groups of the 1990s.
The miniature works of art – also known as Small World Re-Enactments – delve into historical fact and future imaginings: from the attack on the car carrying the Prince of Wales by student rioters last winter to the death of newspaper vendor, Ian Tomlinson, at the G20 protests in the City of London in 2009.James Cauty says: “These ‘small world re-enactments’ depict past and future riots, reality blurred, all within a jam jar. The jam jar represents containment, violent disturbances served up in manageable doses like news bulletins; complex situations reduced to mantle piece ornaments and souvenirs.“In real life riot situations, the media focus is always on the sensation, violence on the tv screen; tag lines and one-liners are the currency. The works in A Riot in a Jam Jar mimic this tv news approach. They focus on, and amp up, situations for instant consumption. These tiny acts of violence serve as snap shots of a greater and vastly more complex reality.” This approach is adapted for a re-imagining of the attack on the car carrying Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall by student fees protestors in central London last year. In this re-imagining, called Off Wiv Their Eds (which was being chanted by the mob that night), protestors pull the future monarch from his car and appear to be beheading him on the roadside. James Cauty says: “This event is micro stage managed to a potential beheading by the side of the road, but only for the satisfaction of the viewer and the stage management of a news story, not for any anti-monarchist reasons.” In Cauty’s imagined world, members of the pop group, Take That, fall foul of the law for using backing dancers dressed as riot police for their performance at the Brit Awards. Robbie Williams is to be seen bleeding on the ground while other members of the group look on as a riot officer batons Mark Owen. Other pieces include the moment newspaper vendor, Ian Tomlinson, is pushed to the ground by a police officer at the G20 protests in the City of London in 2009, and the incident in which a student fees protestor throws a fire extinguisher from the top of Millbank Tower.
Also on display will be police shields with in-built LED messaging, a selection of rioters’ weapons of choice, and a stop-frame animation of a police training exercise on a Peckham estate played on an iPhone in what has to be the smallest movie viewing space ever … a jam jar.
