page_title: Jimmy Cauty
section_title: Art
hierarchical_section_title: Jimmy Cauty / Art
caption_attribution_description: English: James Cauty artwork Operation Magic Kingdom bombed onto billboard in Old Street, 2007
context_page_description: James Francis Cauty, also known as Rockman Rock, is an English artist and musician, best known as one-half of the duo The KLF, co-founder of The Orb and as the man who burnt £1 million.
  He is married to artist, musician, and ex-Thompson Twin Alannah Currie.
context_section_description: Cauty was, until mid-2005, part of art/music collective Blacksmoke, together with James Fogarty and manager Keir Jens-Smith.
  Cauty works with the L-13 Light Industrial Workshop, London which he explains "is not a gallery, it’s a support system, spiritual home and technical epicentre for a small group of artists" which includes Billy Childish, Jamie Reid, and Harry Adams. Cauty first worked in conjunction with L-13 on the Cautese Nationál Postal Disservice. Subsequent collaborations included the Riot In A Jam Jar exhibitions and the ADP Riot Tour - is a vast 1:87 scale model in a 40-foot shipping container which tours historic riot sites around the world. L-13 continue to collaborate with Cauty and Drummond, running "dead perch merch", official merchandise operatives to The JAMs.
  Following 2003 media speculation that Saddam Hussein could launch a poison chemical attack on London, Cauty designed the Stamps of Mass Destruction for Blacksmoke Art Collective. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd class stamps featuring the Queen's head wearing a gas mask were released as limited edition prints and exhibited at Artrepublic Gallery, Brighton. Following a legal battle over alleged copyright infringement, the stamps were sent to Royal Mail for destruction.
  In 2004, Cauty installed a gift shop, Blackoff, at the Aquarium Gallery, based on the UK government's Preparing for Emergencies leaflet. The installation included "terror aware" items, such as "terror tea towels", "attack hankies" and "bunker-buster jigsaw puzzles" (the latter missing one piece). He commented, "The gift shop becomes the place we can explore our branding ideas, Cash for trash – it represents the futility and the glory of it all."
   In response to the Iraq War troop surge of 2007, Cauty developed Operation Magic Kingdom, a series of images showing US forces in Iraq wearing masks of lovable and friendly Disney characters, adopting the UK's "winning hearts and minds" tactics in a bid to gain the confidence of the Iraqi people. In Operation Magic Kingdom "the rules of engagement have been changed to include 'try and be more fun' before firing." The images were launched at the Bayswater Road Sunday Art Exhibition, bombed onto billboards and fly-posted across London, as well as being released by The Aquarium as limited edition prints and stamps.
  In June 2011 he held a public exhibition at L-13 entitled A Riot in a Jam Jar consisting of a series of scale dioramas depicting violent confrontations between British rioters and police, each contained within an inverted glass jar. In 2012,  Cauty premiered his short film, Believe the Magic, starring Debbie Harry, Nick Lehan and Branko Tomović, at Tate Modern as part of the annual Merge festival.
  The ideas of A Riot in a Jam Jar evolved into the Aftermath Dislocation Principle, shown at the Hoxton Arches in October 2013. The 448-square-foot installation at 1:87 scale (representing approximately one square mile) details the desolate and charred aftermath of what appears to have been a devastating riot. The sculpture, constructed by modifying components of traditional model railway kits, took approximately 8 months to complete includes nearly 3,000 police figures and a soundtrack pitched to match the 1:87 scale. The piece "makes a political statement about societal freedom and state control". The Aftermath Dislocation principle then toured the Netherlands, being shown at Piet Hein Eek Gallery, Eindhoven (November 2013), Cultuurwerf, Vlissingen (April 2014), and Mediamatic, Amsterdam (July–August 2014).
  In 2015, the work was exhibited at Banksy's Dismaland and then in London. Following this it was re-engineered to fit inside a 40-foot shipping container and now tours historic riot sites around the world.
  In 2014, Cauty released a series of limited edition Smiley Riot Shields. Each are all ex-police riot gear painted over with a yellow smiley face. He originally designed the shields in 2012 as a symbol of "non-violent direct action" and as a practical self-protective measure for his step-daughter during the Occupy St Paul's eviction.
caption: James Cauty artwork Operation Magic Kingdom bombed onto billboard in Old Street, 2007
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