Every day if I [Alan Streets] paint it’s like bliss. My Name is Alan, Sky Arts 2012
I made up my own action. ibid. Alan
I looked up to the sky and saw dragons and devils ... They just said I was erm schizophrenic. ibid.
I’ve got to do something to get a buzz ... It’s like being on LSD but like all the time. ibid.
A lot of abstract art is a big con. ibid.
Stroke of genius puts him on top. ibid. New York Daily News 29th July 2005
Since Graffiti first started appearing on the streets of the UK almost thirty years ago it’s come a long long way. Graffiti: From Tags to Riches, Sky Arts 2013
Banksy: whose work now sells for hundreds of thousands of pounds. ibid.
Authorities divided on whether street art should be sanctioned. ibid.
Sickboy is keen to distance himself from the hype. ibid.
Like Sickboy, Cyclops is one of the new wave of artists emerging in the wake of Banksy. ibid.
New York City 1982: They call themselves writers because that’s what they do: they write their names among other things everywhere. Names they’ve been given or have chosen themselves. Most of all they write in and on subway trains which carry their names from one end of the city to the other. It’s called bombing … Graffiti writing in New York is a vocation … to some it’s art. Style Wars, 1983
In the 1970s New York graffiti, rapping and breaking became the prime expression of a new young people’s subculture called Hip Hop. Graffiti is the written word. ibid.
To the streets where artists take a chance and the Bronx where young men on the go paint trains and walls like Picasso. Beat This! A Hip Hop History, DJ, 1984
It’s all legal … I promise you that … We’re gonna go and acquire one of Banksy’s works [The Drinker] and we’re gonna hold it to ransom. The Banksy Job, AK47’s commentary, Sky Arts 2020
I didn’t realise then I was opening a fucking Pandora’s box. ibid.
I’m AK47, leader and front man of Art Kieda – we’re an art terrorist organisation. ibid.
I’m an artist. I live in AK47 world. My art is not to be bought or sold. I don’t do it for the money … I just do it to cause mayhem. ibid.
Arto-Politikal-Humourism: it’s artistic, it’s political and we’re taking the piss. ibid.
I’m conceptual: the first time I called myself an artist was when I stole a Banksy piece. ibid.
I kidnapped Tracey Emin off of the wall of the Hackney Empire. They wasn’t fucking happy at all. Especially when we sent it back and it didn’t work. ibid.
‘He went to the police. The piece became legally his and he put it in his garden. I understand Banksy had a bit of a sense of humour failure about this, which I slightly sympathise with.’ ibid. dealer
Banksy statue stolen from garden: The owner claims the statue is worth up to £250,000. ibid. Hackney Bugle mock front page
‘I don’t know whether Banksy had it stolen back.’ ibid. dealer
I am restoring this lost work of art, and without me, this piece will never be seen again. ibid.
You have Mark I cone with Mark II drinker.’ ibid. dealer
We’re going to return it to its original spot. ibid. AK47 to gang
‘From the Thinker to the Drinker to the Stinker.’ ibid. dealer, AK47 adds toilet seat to the Drinker
Predictably, the mainstream turned its nose up at Caribbean art. Lenny Henry’s Caribbean Culture I, BBC 2022
Any great art work ... revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world – the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air. Leonard Bernstein
September 1997: crowds flock to see rotting cows’ heads, pickled sharks and mass murderers. With two fingers up at the old art world, the Sensationalists’ exhibition caused a sensation. Contemporary art is the new rock-n-roll. Sensationalists: The Bad Girls and Boys of British Art, BBC 2022
It’s a story that starts in the 1980s art schools, dole queues and squats of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. ibid.
This combination of youthful bravado, fortunate timing and hard work results in = Freeze Exhibition 6th August 1988. ibid.
The world of art, music and fashion swaggers with attitude. A time of dramatic change and the world is watching. Sensationalists: The Bad Girls and Boys of British Art II: Is It Art?
Collector Charles Saatchi reaches for his checkbook. But to do something on this scale [pickled shark] comes with a £50,000 price tag … Saatchi also shows Hirst’s Thousand Years and Rachael Whiteread’s Ghost. ibid.
One young artist creating opportunity from hardship is Sarah Lucas. ibid.
The reaction to House thrusts Rachel Whiteread into the limelight. She’s nominated for the Turner Prize. ibid.
Two days before Sensation is due to open, the debate intensifies around Myra, and four Royal Academians resign amid protests. Sensationalists: The Bad Girls and Boys of British Art III: Fame & Fortune
Alongside Myra, the works that caused the most controversy are by brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman. ibid.
By 2007 Damien Hirst was invincible selling his art works for millions of pounds. ibid.