Institute of Illegal Images: Return of the Rebel Replevin

Assembled by San Franciscan artist Mark McCloud, the Institute of Illegal Images is the world’s leading collection of blotter paper—sheets of cardstock printed with repeated imagery and perforated into tiny squares, each impregnated with a single dose of LSD. In the 1980s, McCloud began to stockpile blotter, not just as an illicit medium but as a subterranean art form, matting and framing the most significant specimens and hanging them on the walls of his Mission District home. Along the way, he started calling his collection the Institute of Illegal Images, parodying museum gravitas while also dignifying objects that others were not yet taking seriously. Return of Rebel Replevin is the first significant monographic presentation of the Institute of Illegal Images in 40 years, since its debut as The Holy Transfers of the Rebel Replevin at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1987. Thereafter, blotter connoisseurship became an international phenomenon, and McCloud’s network of manufacturers and distributors grew widely. His important role in this underground led to multiple arrests, including one by federal agents in 2000, who raided his home and confiscated his entire collection. But after mounting a successful and widely publicized legal battle, McCloud was acquitted and his blotter returned, now embellished with FBI-issued evidence catalog numbers on strips of masking tape. Return of Rebel Replevin focuses on these confiscated works, accompanied by a selection of ephemera that offers a wider angle on the history of blotter and its cultural impact.

Institute of Illegal Images: Return of the Rebel Replevin includes an introductory text by Erik Davis.