Grey Organisation

The Grey Organisation
GO manifesto with logo
Nationality	English
Known for	Direct Action, Video, Painting

The Grey Organisation (GO) was an artist collective active from 1983 to 1991. GO worked in several media including film and video and participated in over 20 international exhibitions. In January 1985 the group committed an act of 'art terrorism' by smuggling one of its paintings into the International Contemporary Arts Fair in London. The following year it mounted an attack on Cork Street, then the centre of the London art world, splashing grey paint on the windows of a number of galleries. After this, members of the group were arrested and for a time banned from central London. This resulted in them relocating to New York City where they exhibited at The Civilian Warfare Gallery in the East Village. The members of the group were Toby Mott, Daniel Saccoccio, Tim Burke and Paul Spencer

After moving to Bow in East London, Toby Mott and childhood friends Daniel Saccoccio, Tim Burke and Paul Spencer formed Grey Organisation in 1982 as a response to the "prevailing Thatcherite free market consumerist culture". GO's origins can be found in the Punk movement and 1970s' youth politics, the quartet having been members of the Anarchist Street Army. They eschewed the more common anarcho-aesthetic opting instead to dress uniformly in grey suits, with heads shaved in a parody of yuppie and Soviet "corporate monoculture". In 1985 GO began a series of direct art-actions; launching attacks on the International Contemporary Arts Fair in London by sneaking paintings into the fair; and an attack on Cork Street covering some of London’s most famous galleries in grey paint "arguably something inherited from the strategies of disobedience of May '68 Paris, culled from the heroism of Guy Debord". In a press release GO justified the attacks on Cork Street, describing the galleries established there as "boring and lifeless" and stating they "intended to liven up their lives a bit!". The attack took place on Tuesday 21 May 1985, somewhere between midnight and 6am. Members of the Grey Organisation were later arrested, released on bail and banned from central London, but when prosecuted at Well Street Magistrates' court, pleaded 'Not Guilty' and were released without charge. Subsequently, in 1986, GO moved to New York to escape further attempts at prosecution.

On 28 July 1984 GO organised a live concert for Psychic TV. It took place in a derelict circular building in Drayton Park, London and was recorded live and released as Temporary Temple. The same year, GO directed the film Grey Moments.