Géza Perneczky - Ruud Janssen

pants homes, later they were organised around alternative galleries, cinemas and
urban spaces. By the time the 64th Apartment Festival (Berlin December '86) took
place, Neoism had a considerable history and the participants found it difficult to
sustain the movements' anti-theoretical orientation. The Berlin festival was Neoism's
finest hour but it also marked the end of the group. The Millionth Apartment Festival
in New York (November '88) was a complete failure.
When Graham Harwood and Steward Home organised the First Festival of
Plagiarism in London (January/February '88), they wanted to break free of the
bohemian taints which were attached to their Neoist comrades. And so at the heart
of the plagiarist movement there lies a polymedia celebration of those cultural
practices which transgress the logic of the commodity and its exchange value.
Plagiarists emphasise the collective nature of all cultural productions and the central
role played by the audience in this process. Recognising that the task of revolutionary
propaganda is to discredit all received ideas without offering a single alternative
thought with which they might be replaced, plagiarists separate the ideas of the
avant-garde from avant-garde personalities and then bring both into disrepute. Thus
much of this plagiarist issue of Smile is given over to an exploration of so called
redical culture from the fifties and sixties.
As well as destroying the traditions of the dead generations, we are also
intent upon attacking our own power. After plagiarism comes the Art Strike, there
years of silence between 1990 and 1993.
Your immortal friend, Monty Cantsin. Smile, BM Senior, London WC1N
3XX»
(In: Smile N° 11, 1989, 2 p. Remarkably Home does not make mention of
István Kántor – also a founder of Neoism – in this text, who was the first user of the
name Monty Cantsin.)
(The Festival of Plagiarism): «...This is a very unglossy interpretation of the events,
as Home unflinchingly details the successes and failures of the many events associated
with that Festival. The writing, while a bit dens, is capable of formulating
arguments of real clarity and power. Home seems to be one of the main theorists of
the activities that have sprung up in the wake of Neoism. These include the recent
interest in plagiarism and art strike actions, ones which merit, to my way of
thinging, a good deal of attention. Home addresses issues which seem terribly apt
perhaps because of where the technical project of human development leaves us –
with xerox machines and tape recorders and legislation against their fullest use.
(A lot like a god giving us genitalia and then telling us it's bad to use them.)»
( Lloyd → Dunn: Print Reviews. PhotoStatic. N° 36, June 1989, 1340-1341 p.)
(The Assault on Culture): «...To see this book merely as art history would be incorrect.
Home is an activist and intends this work to be simultaneously a description of
certain models of assaults on culture, as well as an example of such an assault...»
( Lloyd→ Dunn: Print Reviews. PhotoStatic. N° 38, Oct. 1989, 1438-1439 p.)
→ Held, John, Jr.: Mind the Gap. Bridging Art and Life During a One-Week Mail
Art Performance Party in London. In: Lightworks [→ Burch]. N° 20-21, 1990. 42-
45 p.
Simon Ford: The art of legitimation: The on-going transformation of the avantgarde
from counter-cultural force to dominant institution. Stewart Home interviewed
by Simon Ford. In: Edinburgh Review, 1991, 87-97
Géza Perneczky: With Love and Sabotage (About Neoism and Radicalism in the
Mail Art) In: The Magazine Network. The trends of alternative art in the light of
their periodicals 1968-1988. Edition Soft Geometry, Köln, 1993. 152-175 p.
Ian Sinclair: Who is Stewart Home? In: London Revies of Books, 23 June 1994,