BY TIFFANY YOON We all know the old saw about Robin Hood stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Which is noble and all, but quite frankly risky — the rich HATE when you steal from them and tend to press charges — and a lot of work. Wouldn’t it be so much easier, not to mention downright Republican, to steal from the poor instead and, well, just keep it for yourself? And who is poorer than a bunch of starving artists? And get this: These starving artists actually WANT you to steal their shit.
Starting today, the ME INTERNATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT (MiLF) will be dispersing 50 pieces of art — all variations on the collective’s iconic fist — throughout the city. Your job is to go out, find one, and then
steal it. These fists are illegally mounted throughout the city, and the fun part is that you get to go out and illegally steal them. Really, it would make the artists that created them SO happy. The members of MiLF, which grew out of RENEGADE ART COALITION, prefer to think of themselves as “pedestrian art idealists,” and their prime directive is to eliminate the middle-men of galleries and smash the gallery/buyer status quo-enabling apparatus. Or at least have fun trying.
The fist was chosen as MiLF’s icon in these projects, because throughout history the fist has always represented “demand to be heard” in revolutionary iconography. They wanna take their art right to the people. And the easiest way to do that is to put it on the street and let people steal it. Here’s hoping this doesn’t turn out like Boston’s farcical response to the guerrilla marketing campaign for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. Now that was a crime.