Up Against the Real: Black Mask from Art to Action [2023]

MILLNER-LARSEN, Nadja. Up Against the Real: Black Mask from Art to Action. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 7 March 2023. 288 p.; ill.; 23 x 15 cm.; ill. Cover with text in black and white.

Art Historian Nadja Millner-Larsen authors the first book-length scholarly study of Black Mask.

“”With Up Against the Real, Nadja Millner-Larsen offers the first comprehensive study of the group Black Mask and its acrimonious relationship to the New York art world of the 1960s. Cited as pioneers of now-common protest aesthetics, the group’s members employed incendiary modes of direct action against racism, colonialism, and the museum system. They shut down the Museum of Modern Art, fired blanks during a poetry reading, stormed the Pentagon in an antiwar protest, sprayed cow’s blood at the secretary of state, and dumped garbage into the fountain at Lincoln Center. Black Mask published a Dadaist broadside until 1968, when it changed its name to Up Against the Wall Motherfucker (after line in a poem by Amiri Baraka) and came to classify itself as “a street gang with analysis.” American activist Abbie Hoffman described the group as “the middle-class nightmare . . . an anti-media phenomenon simply because their name could not be printed.” Up Against the Real examines how and why the group ultimately rejected art in favor of what its members deemed “real” political action. Exploring this notorious example of cultural activism that rose from the ruins of the avant-garde, Millner-Larsen makes a critical intervention in our understanding of political art.” (Publisher)

For more on Black Mask, see https://situationnisteblog.wordpress.com//?s=%22black+mask%22&search=Go

Black Mask – Issues 1-10 [1966-68]

Black Mask. Black Mask 1-10. New York: Black Mask, 11/1966-05/1968. 4 p.; ill.; 25 x 33 cm. Offset-printed in black & white. First edition.

All 10 issues of the journal of the Black Mask group. “Founded in New York City in the mid-1960s by self-educated ghetto kid and painter Ben Morea, the Black Mask group melded the ideas and inspiration of Dada and the Surrealists, with the anarchism of the Durruti Column from the Spanish Revolution. With a theory and practice that had much in common with their contemporaries the San Francisco Diggers, Dutch Provos, and the French Situationists—who famously excommunicated 3 of the 4 members of the British section of the Situationist International for associating too closely with Black Mask—the group intervened spectacularly in the art, politics and culture of their times. From shutting down the Museum of Modern Art to protesting Wall Street’s bankrolling of war, from battling with Maoists at SDS conferences to defending the Valerie Solanas shooting of Andy Warhol, Black Mask successfully straddled the counterculture and politics of the 60s, and remained the Joker in the pack of both sides of “The Movement.”‘ (PM Press)

To understand the relationship between Black Mask and the Situationists, one can refer to Debord’s correspondence with Morea and members of both the British and American sections of the Internationale Situationniste (available in translation here: http://www.notbored.org/debord.html). The exclusion of Clark, Gray and Smith from the SI is documented in Internationale Situationniste #12 (in translation here: http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/latest.html), though this is very much written from the “orthodox” perspective and should not be construed as objective truth. Lastly, the astute scholar may choose to consult Morea’s papers at New York University, with a focus on Series V (http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_530/dscref17.html)

A reprint of all 10 issues is available from PM press (http://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=255)

Opposition: Black Mask, Ben Morea, & U.A.W.M.F

Tags

Ben Morea, Black Mask, Christopher Gray, Donald Nicholson-Smith, Situationist International, Timothy Clark

Black Mask and Up Against the Wall Motherfucker. Opposition: Black Mask, Ben Morea & U.A.W.M.F. New York: Boo-Hooray, 2014. 158 p.; ill.; 35.5 x 28 cm.; ill. black and white cover. Edition of 300.

Largely unknown by choice, Ben Morea is the force behind the 1960s art/anarchist collectives U.A.W.M.F. and the International Werewolf Conspiracy, and the legendary anarchist zine/broadside Black Mask. Produced in cooperation with Ben, this handmade three-color risograph catalog showcases full reproductions of rare and striking Black Mask artwork, flyers, and ephemera. This edition features a supplementary publication, which includes an exclusive autobiographical text by Ben, an essay by Johan Kugelberg, and annotations of the publications, handbills, and broadsides, celebrating a life work that intersected the underground press, rock and roll, performance art, experimental theater, and radical politics. Released on the occasion of the exhibition mounted at Boo-Hooray from January 16 to February 14, 2014

Ben Morea and Black Mask’s relationship with the Situationists was fraught with tension. In 1966 Black Mask magazine cited the Situationist International as a group moving in a similar direction calling as they were for “the revolution of everyday life” and the abolition of art as a separate, specialized activity. However in December1967 the SI expelled three of its British members (Timothy Clark, Christopher Gray and Donald Nicholson-Smith) for having supported “a certain Ben Morea, publisher of the bulletin Black Mask.”

 

Armed Love [1969]

[BLACK MASK / U.A.W.M.F.]. MOTHERFUCKERS. Armed Love in Rat: Subterranean News, vol. 1, no.27, January 31-February 6, 1969, p.9. New York: Rat Subterranean News, 1969. 20 p.; ill.; 28.5 x 42 cm.; ill. Wrappers with B&W photographs

“”A more expansive version of the Zig-Zag man [from the eponymous rolling paper] wotj added imagery of male genitalia and a brief statement on consciousness and revolution” (Opposition: Black Mask, Ben Morea, & U.A.W.M.F., p.21). Reproduced in Kugelberg 79

Hip Survival Bulletin” and “From the Old Reality Comes the New” [1969]

[BLACK MASK / U.A.W.M.F.]. MOTHERFUCKERS. Hip Survival Bulletin and From the Old Reality Comes the New in Rat Subterranean News, vol. 2, no.1, March 14-21, [1969], p.8 and p. 20. New York: Rat Subterranean News, 1969. 20 p.; ill.; 28.5 x 42 cm.; ill. Wrappers with stock market chart.

Includes two Motherfucker pieces:

– “Hip Survival Bulletin”: “This one page report in the Rat giving late information on the takeover of the Straight Theater in San Francisco a la the U.A.W.M.F. action against the Fillmore in New York, notes on an affiliated Boston group, and a call for regular communication among ‘Hip Communities'”(Opposition: Black Mask, Ben Morea, & U.A.W.M.F., p.21). Reproduced in Kugelberg 84

– “From the Old Reality Comes the New”: “This illustrated statement by the two groups [Motherfuckers and International Werewolf Conspiracy] appeared in the Rat, describing and celebrating the new, activist-focused, communal reality” (Opposition: Black Mask, Ben Morea, & U.A.W.M.F., p.21). Reproduced in Kugelberg 85

Never (1969)

[BLACK MASK / U.A.W.M.F.]. MOTHERFUCKERS. Never in Rat: Subterranean News, May 2-8 1969, p.9. New York: Rat Subterranean News, 1969. 20 p.; ill.; 28.5 x 42 cm.; ill. Wrappers with a comic strip.

“This brief statement by the Motherfuckers employs’found art’ , in this instance, re-adapted panels from Marvel’s Hulk comics” (Opposition: Black Mask, Ben Morea, & U.A.W.M.F., p.22). Reproduced in Kugelberg 87.

 

King Mob Echo 1 – Original printer’s plates [1968]

King Mob. King Mob 1: King Mob Echo. n.p. [London: BCM/King Mob], n.d. [ca. April 1968]. 10 original printer’s plates, various dimensions.

Complete set of original printer’s plates for King Mob Echo 1. Of note, the first plate is the picture from the front page of an early issue of Ben Morea’s Black Mask, showcasing the connection between the two groups

This first issue of King Mob includes a front cover image of a menacing masked man (from Louis Feuillade’s film “Fantomas”) above a Karl Marx quotation (from “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon”). Contents include: “The Return of the Repressed” by radical psychoanalysis scholar Norman O. Brown; “Desolation Row”, an excerpt “free translated from Raoul Vaneigem’s Traite de Savoir Vitre a l’Usages des Jeunes Generations” (1967); “Urban Gorilla Comes East”, the magazine’s only original King Mob statement, co-written by Phil Cohen (also known for his involvement with the London Street Commune and the 144 Piccadilly squat) and Donald Nicholson Smith. Reprinted in King Mob Echo: English Section of the Situationist International (London: Dark Star, 2000), pp. 71-81

PSA: Against Cinema – Situationist Film and its Legacy (Aug 30 – Sept 27)

Dear readers,

For those of you living in or near the San Francisco Bay Area, I am co-curating an exhibition/retrospective entitled Against Cinema: Situationist Film and its Legacy. It will be held at the ProArts Gallery at 150 Frank H Ogawa Plaza in Oakland California from August 30 to September 27. More information can be be found here

On June 30, 1952, Guy Debord’s Hurlements en faveur de Sade (trans: Howls for Sade) premiered at the Ciné-Club d’Avant-Gardes in Paris. A few minutes into the film, a narrative voice stated: “There’s no film. Cinema is dead. There can’t be film anymore”. Many of the viewers walked out, while others loudly protested the film. The chaos was so severe that the screening was halted after only a few minutes.

Situationist cinema is both scandalous and revolutionary because it rejects many of the core premises of cinema. First: Film-making is about creating new images, producing new representations. La Société du Spectacle (trans: Society of the Spectacle), Debord’s screen adaptation of his 1967 book, defies this principle. The 88-min full-length feature contains absolutely nothing new – every shot is “borrowed” from existing media sources. The film includes footage from TV ads, news reports, documentaries, and masterpieces of world cinema like Battleship Potemkin.

Second: Images and sound should support each other to create an immersive (or at least coherent) viewer experience. In La Société du Spectacle, Debord substitutes the footage’s original soundtrack with voice-over readings of material from his theoretical treatise and music by 18^th century classical composer Michel Corette. In his La Dialectique peut-elle casser des briques? (trans: Can Dialectics Break Bricks?) – dubbed “the first completely detourned film in the history of cinema” – René Vienet takes a conventional, B-list martial arts film and turns it into a story of revolutionary class struggle. This is done by preserving all the visuals while altering the soundtrack (through a “creative” dubbing of the original Chinese) to tell a completely different story.

For Debord, “the spectacle is…a social relation among people, mediated by images.”. Through film, he (and other like-minded film-makers) seek to “dismantle the spectacle” (T. Levin) – that is, to uncover the mechanisms at play in spectacular society. As such, cinema operates as a critical medium for Situationists to articulate their radical criticism of the spectacular-commodity society.

The exhibition, Against Cinema: Situationist Film and Its Legacy, seeks to retrace the history and legacy of Situationist film. From its inception in the Lettrist works of Maurice Lemaitre, Gil Wolman and the young Guy Debord in the 1950s through the Situationist-influenced films of René Vienet in the 70s, Isaac Cronin in the 80s, Michel Hazanavicius in the 90s, and Tiqqun in the 2000s. While there have been numerous retrospectives of Guy Debord’s film – at the Magic Cinema in Bobigny (2002), the Cinema le Miroir in Marseille (2006), the German Cinemateque in Berlin (2008) and the Yamagata Film Festival (2009), among others – far fewer (if any) attempts have been made to look at Situationist film more broadly. In addition to film programming, this exhibition is unique in bringing together some of the most prominent creators, translators and critics of Situationist cinema. The gallery will also feature a collection of unique original artifacts pertaining to Lettrist and Situationist artifacts, with items ranging from movie posters, lobby cards, film stills, original movie scripts, bootleg VHS tapes, censorship leaflets, film synopses and more. All in all, this is an occasion to fully immerse yourself in Situationist cinema.

Public Program

Opening Reception: Aug 30, 6 – 9 pm with an introduction by Mehdi El Hajoui.

Film Screening series:

Sep 6, 7 – 8:30 PM, door opens at 6:30 PM

Guy Debord. La Société du Spectacle (1973) with an introduction by Ken Knabb

Sep 12, 7 – 8:30 PM, door opens at 6:30PM

René Vienet. La dialectique peut-elle casser des briques? (1973) with an introduction by Keith Sanborn

Sep 19, 7- 8:30 PM, door opens at 6:30 PM

Isaac Cronin and Terrel Seltzer. Call it sleep (1982),  And the war has only just begun (2001).

Sep 27, 7- 8:30 PM, door opens at 6:30 PM

Heath Schultz and Guy Debord. Society of the Spectacle (2013) with an introduction by Heath Schultz

About the archive

The exhibition draws from the Internationale Situationniste and its aftermath archive. Through nearly 2,500 items, the archive retraces the History of the avant-garde movement, starting with the foundation of the Internationale Lettriste (1952-1957) through the Internationale Situationniste (1957-1972). Significant attention is paid to the ways in which the Situationist International shaped the artistic and political discourse in the U.S. and the U.K. from the 1970s onwards, with the likes of King Mob, Black Mask, Processed World, Upshot (John Zerzan), the London Psychogeographical Association, or Tom Vague – to name a few. The archive also shows particular strength in Lettrist and Situationist cinema.

The archive was exhibited at the Lily Library at Indiana University (Bloomington, IN) as part of the Wounded Galaxies – Beneath the Paving Stones, the Beach symposium and festival in 2018. Individual items have also been featured in Geneva’s MAMCO (Die Welt als Labyrinth) and Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt (The Most Dangerous Game), also in 2018.

The archive is currently located in Mountain View, CA and is accessible free of charge, by appointment. Hundreds of unique or otherwise unusual items have been digitized and are shared through a dedicated blog: https://situationnisteblog.wordpress.com/. The archive is also part of the Public Collectors, a project to “make available cultural artifacts that public libraries, museums and other institutions and archives either do not collect or do not make freely accessible” (http://publiccollectors.org/SituationnisteCollection.html)

About the archivist

Mehdi El Hajoui has been researching and collecting the Internationale Situationniste and its aftermath for the last decade. He has spoken about the topic at Princeton University, Indiana University – Bloomington, the Philobiblon club of Philadelphia, and the Red Victorian in San Francisco, CA. Mehdi was the winner of the Jay I. Kislak Foundation Student Book Collecting Competition in 2010, and he completed the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS) in 2015. He is a graduate of Harvard University.

Interlude: Detailed summary of holdings

Dear readers,

It has recently come to my attention that some of you would like to have a high-level view of my holdings. This will allow you to make requests, should you like a particular item scanned or featured on the blog.

Thanks and hope this proves helpful

Situationnisteblog

 

HOLDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONALE SITUATIONNISTE AND ITS AFTERMATH ARCHIVE

1. The prequel: the Internationale Lettriste (~25 items)

• Ion: Centre de Creation (issue 1; full run)
• Les Levres Nues (issues related to the Lettristes – 7, 8 and 9; incomplete run)
• Potlatch (issues 20-30; incomplete run)
2. The Internationale Situationniste (~500 items)

2.1 Works by the Internationale Situationniste – ~150 items, including:
• Internationale Situationniste (issues 1-12; full run including two printings of issue #2)
• Situationist International: Review of the American Section (issue 1; full run)
• Situationistisk Revolution (issues 1-3; full run including all supplements)
• Internazionale Situazionista (issue 1; full run)
• De la Misere en Milieu Etudiant ( 50+ editions in 15+ languages) – the most comprehensive archive of this publication that we know of. The first edition is signed by Mustapha Khayati
• Conseil pour le Maintien des Occupations (leaflets and posters issued by this group)
• As well as numerous other original leaflets, pamphlets, posters, etc. by the SI

2.2 Works by members of the Internationale Situationniste – ~350 items, including:
• Bernstein, Michèle (select original publications)
• Chasse, Robert (select original publications and one mimeographed letter)
• De Jong, Jacqueline (Situationist Times, issues 1-6 ; full run ; all issues signed by De Jong)
• Debord, Guy (significant archive, including original correspondence, artist books Mémoires and Fin de Copenhague, and 50+ distinct editions of La Société du Spectacle)
• Khayati, Mustapha (select original publications, including 6 distinct editions of Adresse aux Revolutionnaires d’Algerie et de Tous les Pays and Sulta-Al-Majaliss, an SI-influenced arab language periodical)
• Jorn, Asger (select original publications, including Pour la Forme)
• Nash, Jorgen (select original publications, including a full run of Drakabygget)
• Rumney, Ralph (select original publications, including The Leaning Tower of Venice)
• Sanguinetti, Gianfranco (select original publications, including Il Secreto e Dirlo)
• Straram, Patrick (select original publications, including Cahier Pour un Paysage à Inventer)
• SPUR (issues 1-7; full run + original correspondence around the SPUR trial)
• Vaneigem, Raoul (significant holdings, including 7 distinct editions of “Banalités de Base”, 10 distinct editions of Traité de Savoir-Vivre and 2 erotic novels written pseudonymously)
• Vienet, René (significant holdings, including DVDs of films, film synopsis and film posters for all his major films)
• As well as original publications by Constant (Nieuwenhuys), Frey/Garnault/Holl, Chris Gray, Jon Horelick, Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio, Charles Radcliffe, Rene Riesel, Gianfranco Sanguinetti, and others
3. Pro/Post-Situationist groups and publications (1960s-Present) (~1,000 items)

3.1 American pro/post-Situationist –~330 items, including:
• Against Sleep & Nightmare (issues 1-8; full run)
• Black & Red (issues 3-6)
• Black Mask (issues 1-6, 8-9)
• Bureau of Public Secrets (i.e., Ken Knabb) (significant holdings)
• Caribbean Situationist / Fundi (select origin-al publications)
• Contradiction (select original publications)
• End of Prehistory (select original publications)
• For Ourselves (select original publications)
• Michigan Anarchist coalition (select original publications)
• More to Come (select original publications)
• Negation (select original publications)
• No Middle Ground (issues 1-4; full run)
• Not Bored! (i.e., Bill Brown) (select issues)
• Operationist Group (significant holdings)
• Point-Blank! (select original publications)
• Processed World (issues 1-32, 2.001 and 2.005; full run + select original publications)
• Reinvention of Everyday Life (select original publications)
• Smile by Shiz-Flux (issues 1-6; full run)
• Upshot (i.e., John & Paula Zerzan) (significant holdings)
• As well as original publications by Isaac Cronin, Robert Cooperstein, Fredy Perlman, Chris Shutes, and others

3.2 British pro/post-Situationist – ~250 items, including:
• Anti-Clock Wise (i.e., Richard Turner) (issues 1-20; full run)
• B.M. Blob (i.e., David & Stuart Wise) (several original publications)
• B.M. Chronos (i.e., Michel Prigent) (significant holdings)
• B.M. Combustion / Spontaneous Combustion (i.e., Nick Brandt) (significant holdings)
• DAta Miners et Travailleurs Psychiques (DAMTP) (issues 1-15; full run to date)
• Heatwave (issues 1-2; full run)
• Infopool (i.e., Jakob Jakobsen) (issues 1-8; full run)
• King Mob (issue 1-6; full run)
• London Psychogeographical Association Newsletter (issues 1-17 and 19-21)
• Manchester Area Psychogeographic (issues 1-9; full run)
• Pleasure Tendency (select original publications)
• Spectacular Times (issues 1-14; full run)
• The Spectacle (select original publications)
• Vague (select issues with Situationist content)
• As well as original publications by Stewart Home, Fabian Tompsett, and others

3.3 French pro/post-Situationist – ~375 items, including:
• Ab Irato (issues 5-7; incomplete run)
• L’Achevement (issues 1-8; full run + select original publications)
• L’Affranchi (issues 1-11; full run)
• Los Amigos de Ludd (issues 1-8; full run)
• Association Contre le Nucléaire et son Monde (ACNM) (select original publications)
• Associés Autonomes (i.e., Jaime Juan Garcia) (significant holdings)
• La Banalyse (select original publications)
• La Bibliothèque des Emeutes (issues 1-8 ; full run)
• De Bello Civili (issues 1-3; full run)
• Bibliothèque des Emeutes (issues 1-8; full run)
• Michel Bounan (complete publications)
• Dérive urbaine (issues 1-6 ; full run)
• L’Echaudée (issues 1-5; full run to date)
• L’Encyclopédie des Nuisances (issues 1-15; full run + select original publications)
• Les Fils de M. Hyde (issues 1-6 ; incomplete run)
• Les Fossoyeurs du Vieux Monde (issues 2 & 4 ; incomplete run)
• La Guerre Sociale (issues 1-7 ; full run)
• L’Homme au Foyer (issues 1-8 ; full run)
• Interférences (issues 1-10 ; incomplete run)
• Le Monde à l’Envers (i.e., Jean-Louis Paul) (issues 2-3 ; incomplete run)
• Mordicus (select issues; incomplete run)
• Oiseau-Tempete (issues 1-11, 13; incomplete run – issue 12 missing)
• Os Cangaceiros (select publications)
• Les Societaires du Spectacle (all issues 1990-1998; incomplete run)
• Tiqqun (issues 1-2; full run + select original publications)
• Tout doit partir (issues 0-6; full run)
• Trillaud, André (select original publications)
• Vaseline (issues 1-7 ; full run)
• Voyer, Jean-Pierre (significant holdings)
• As well as original publications by Guy Bodson, Jean-Francois Martos, and others

3.4 Japanese pro/post-Situationist – ~15 items, including:
• Various English language items related to the “Zengakuren” movement

 

4. Publications about the Internationale Situationniste (~300 items)

• Bibliographies of the Internationale Situationniste and its aftermath by Beni, Bill Brown, Simon Ford, Shigenobu Gonzalvez, J-J Raspaud & J-P Voyer,.
• Books and pamphlets about the Internationale Situationniste by Jean-Marie Apostolidès, Christophe Bourseiller, Laurent Chollet, Boris Donné, Vincent Kaufmann, J-F Martos, Anna Trespeuch-Berthelot, McKenzie Wark, etc.).
• Various auction and bookseller catalogs (e.g., Lecointre Drouet, Jean-Yves Lacroix, etc.)
• Various exhibition catalogs (Boston, Paris, London, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Basel, etc.) and related ephemera
• Various dissertations and university theses
• Various issues of magazines and press clippings (150+ articles, mostly in French press)

 

5. Press coverage about the Internationale Situationniste (~200 items)

• Various issues of magazines and press clippings (mostly in French press)

 

King Mob 1-6 [1968-70]

Complete run in 5 issues (no.4 was never published) of this legendary British counter-culture magazine put out by David & Stuart Wise, later joined by Christopher Gray, Donald Nicholson-Smith and TJ Clark (all former members of the British Section of the Situationist International).Also included here is a leaflet listing all King Mob publications.

Retracing the history of King Mob, its evolution, and its linkages with Black Mask / Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers would be too long and has already been done. I encourage readers to learn more by reading Tom Vague’s “King Mob Echo: From Gordon Riots to Situations & Sex Pistols” (London: Dark Star, 2000; in print); Tom Vague’s “King Mob: English Section of the Situationist International” (London: Dark Star, 2000; in print) and, online, the Wise Brothers’ own “King Mob: A Critical Hidden History” (available online at http://www.revoltagainstplenty.com/index.php/archive-local/93-a-hidden-history-of-king-mob.html).

King Mob. King Mob 1: King Mob Echo. London: BCM/King Mob, April 1968. n.p. [12 p.]; ill.; 24 x 34 cm.; ill. B&W wrappers with picture of a menacing masked man with text in white.

This first issue includes a front cover image of a menacing masked man (from Louis Feuillade’s film “Fantomas”) above a Karl Marx quotation (from “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon”). Contents include: “The Return of the Repressed” by radical psychoanalysis scholar Norman O. Brown; “Desolation Row”, an excerpt “free translated from Raoul Vaneigem’s Traite de Savoir Vitre a l’Usages des Jeunes Generations” (1967); “Urban Gorilla Comes East”, the magazine’s only original King Mob statement, co-written by Phil Cohen (also known for his involvement with the London Street Commune and the 144 Piccadilly squat) and Donald Nicholson Smith. Reprinted in King Mob Echo: English Section of the Situationist International (London: Dark Star, 2000), pp. 71-81

King Mob. King Mob 2: Letters on Student Power. London: BCM/King Mob, November 1968. n.p. [4 p.]; ill.; 24 x 36 cm.; ill. B&W wrappers with text in black.

This second issue, entitled “King Mob: Two Letters on Student Power”, contains the group’s response to and critique of the student revolts and the anti-university movement, with the central text by Christopher Gray (formerly of the Situationist International). Also included is a brief article by Richard Huelsenbeck on the same topic, which mentions Trocchi.  Reprinted in King Mob Echo: English Section of the Situationist International (London: Dark Star, 2000), pp.85-90

King Mob. King Mob 3. London: BCM/King Mob, May 1969. 16 p.; ill.; 25 x 36 cm.; ill. White wrappers with picture of a menacing werewolf, text in black and white.

This third issue features a striking front cover with a picture of a werewolf. It reprints content from Ben Morea’s Black Mask journal and advertizes Black Mask / Up Against the Wall Motherfucker’s actions in the United States (“The first year Black Mask seized every possible opportunity of fucking up culture”) . It includes the famous action to close the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As always, illustrations are stunning and speak to the group’s radicalism and nihilistic outlook. Reprinted in King Mob Echo: English Section of the Situationist International (London: Dark Star, 2000), pp.101-122

King Mob. King Mob 5. Inglewood (Australia): The King Mob Collective, n.d. [1970]. n.p. [8 p.]; ill.; 22.5 x 36 cm.; ill. B&W with text in black.

This scarce fifth issue was published in Australia, seemingly independently from the British group but with similar layout and content. Contents include: “Those Still  in Prison” (a criticism of the prison system from an anarchist standpoint); “Editorial”; “Join the Revolution”; “Total self-management” (a discussion of workers councils and self-management); “The Last Puppet Show” (a criticism of students and Universities), etc. Also reprints excerpts from Fredy Perlman’s The Reproduction of Daily Life  and comics from old King Mob leaflets and journals. Provides a number of contacts, primarily of Anarchist bookstores in Australia and New Zealand. Incompletely reprinted in King Mob Echo: English Section of the Situationist International (London: Dark Star, 2000), pp.123-124

King Mob. King Mob 6: Notes from the Underground. London: BCM/King Mob, n.d. [1970]. n.p. [4 p.]; ill.; 25 x 34 cm.; ill. B&W wrappers with text in black.

This scarce sixth issue contains of a single, lengthy article on the revolutionary struggle against monopoly capitalism and the commodity hierarchy. Christopher Gray has suggested that it may have been written by Dave Wise, who has stated that it was mainly written by Ian and Diana Clegg “with a little distant help from their…friends from Newcastle”. One section reads: “Monopoly capitalism will construct its Ministry of Leisure over Western Europe: Butlins camps or rarified Belsens all along the Costa Brava”, a meme that found its way into the lyrics for “Holidays in the Sun” and Jamie Reid’s punk slogan, “Cheap Holidays in Other Peoples Misery”. Reprinted in King Mob Echo: English Section of the Situationist International (London: Dark Star, 2000), pp.125-129.

King Mob. King Mob Publications. London: BCM/King Mob, n.d. [1970]. 1 p.; 20.5x 34 cm.; black ink on white stock.

Leaflet that lists the titles and prices of the group’s publications: The first three issues of the journal (“King Mob no.1 – Vaneigem on Situationism and Norman O Brown on Genitality”; “King Mob no.2 – Two Letters on Student Power”; “King Mob no.3 – The Great Motherfucker Revolution), two posters (“King Mob Motherfucker Poster” and “Luddites’69”), a number of Situationist publications (“Ten Days that Shook the university (Situationist International); “Vaneigem: ‘Totality for Kids’ (Situationist International); “Situationist Comic”; “Theses on the Commune”). Three handwritten additions are made in red pen: “Unitary Urbanism”; “SMASHIT Cartoon”; and “King Mob 6 – Work / out shortly”. Includes the King Mob stamp with the group’s W.C.1 address in London.