Inventory's Pre-War Art Exhibition at Rob Tufnell Revives 1990s London Agitator Collective

The Rob Tufnell gallery is showcasing an exhibition featuring Inventory, a London-based artist collective that was active from the late 1990s until 2005. This display includes a range of their works, such as the 1997 poster depicting a tapir with the phrase 'I want more life fucker.' Inventory's approach merges humor, anger, and anti-establishment themes, influenced by Baudelaire, Bataille, and Situationist ideas to challenge the monotony of capitalism. They published 14 journal issues from 1995 to 2005. The exhibition also highlights video clips from the 2000 public action Coagulum, which took place in an Oxford Street store. Notable pieces include Three Episodes in the Relentless Process of Decay (2003) and The Terminal Division (2002). More recent works like Inner Emigration (2014) and I Myself Am War (2014) further explore themes of withdrawal and conflict, with Inventory identifying as 'pre-war artists' in their press release, indicating their ongoing relevance. This article was originally published in October 2014.