From Mark Borkowski’s Borkowski Blog, May 6, 2008:

I have just been sent this release about a solo show by artist activists the “Vacuum Cleaner”. The group plans to sell £14,040 of Coke, Heroin and Hash as part of a gallery show. What a wonderful idea. Contemporary art is reaching new heights, mixing a PR stunt with art. Is it a wind up? I really don’t care, but I know where I’d like to be on Friday evening.

Get Ta Suck
A solo show by artist activist’s the vacuum cleaner.

Artist to sell £14,040 of drugs in Glasgow Gallery

Preview 09.05.08: 7-9.30 pm
Exhibition runs 10.05.08 – 18.05.08
Weds-Sun 12-6pm

+44 141
SWG3 - work@swg3.tv
100 Eastvale Place
G3 8QG

Glasgow based artist activist ‘the vacuum cleaner’ are planning to sell £14,040 of Coke, Smack and Soap Bar (Hash) as part of a gallery show at the Studio Warehouse, Glasgow.

The piece titled Smack, Soap Bar, Coke is one of a series of new works to be included in the groups first solo gallery show. The ‘enfants terrible’ of the Glasgow art scene will also be including some of their most controversial existing works; including The Ultimate Television Commercial, a remix of the Paris Hilton Sex Tape, Deep Throat and Coke bottles, the video hasn’t been seen since it was band from most of the internet last year. (more…)

From Mark Borkowski:

Hampshire police thought it would be a good idea to advertise on the back of buses. Their planning didn’t take into account the position of the exhaust pipe…

From Mark Borkowski:

I love the notion of stunts and pranks if the end product generates meaningful content and lingers in the conscious. When Joey asked me to contribute to Pranks I had some great fun tripping down memory lane, and remember a bizarre prank show I staged with performance artist Dexter Augustus.

I have worked with the great and perverse Dexter, who staged daily shows in the front room of a respectable Edinburgh Morningside house (where “sex” is what nuggets of coal is packed in) to a maximum audience of six. He let the audience in for free and, on the basis that critics don’t pay for their seats, to retain the protocol of inequality, he paid each reviewer £10 to come in. He refused Ruby Wax entry because he didn’t like her coat.

On the roof of the house, he placed rave-sized speakers blasting out a repetitive egocentric two-minute ditty on a tape loop, which attracted police attention when local residents claimed they were being subjected to the aural equivalent of Chinese water torture. The coverage was superb. (more…)