Coming up through Hackney, London, primarily in street work and tagging, L.S. Toy is the epitome of an unnanounced shadow character, something between a figurative concept but a living and breathing one, one whose conceptual art practice does not shy away from combatting economics, legality, currency, and global conflicts. Based in Hackney, starting in street work and tagging, before studying economics at the University of London, then fine art at the Royal College of Art — his career path appears at the face a series of system switches, but is functionally tied to eberything that he makes. He has recently been named as a member amongst the cohort of Residualism, the movement identified around Agency Media Group, deeply informing much of his approach and documentations of collapse in value in money, culture, violence, and nationhood. He resists the artist-as-personality, preferring the works to circulate as what he calls documents of collapse ratherthan declarations of intent. "Media is both the subject and the medium," he has said. "The works attract spectacle because they press on fault lines: money, violence, counterculture, nationhood. But the core is philosophical."

and a conceptual artist based in Hackney, London came up through street work before studying economics at the University of London and the London School of Economics, then fine art at the Royal College of Art — a sequence that reads less like a career path than a series of system switches, and one that structures everything he makes. His practice treats economics, legality, currency, and conflict not as subjects to depict but asfunctions to inhabit: the EF-1 Series, a million pounds of conceptual bonds mimicking corporate debt instruments; currency sculptures precise enough to require legalconsultation before display; the Olympic Series, national flags flattened to industrialgreyscale and scaled to the military and economic power of the states they represent; and

Rocket Man

, a seven-panel photorealistic rendering of airman Aaron Bushnell's self-immolation. The work moves in an appropriation lineage running Duchamp through Richard Prince, executed with a counterfeiter's precision and a vandal's timing.

Toy shows outside the gallery establishment — unannounced exhibitions in warehouse spaces across London, Berlin, and Brooklyn, no studio visits, short runs — much of it moving through Base 36, the independent cultural network spanning the RP.1 label and curatorial arm.

Converting Culture

magazine, and 121.radio, which has built its owninfrastructure across Brooklyn, Berlin, and Los Angeles rather than waiting on the gallerysystem's. Toy is one of the network's core artists, and within its orbit he producescollaborative image-works with Jet Le Parti under the shared identity Reign.925. He hasrecently been named among the core cohort of Residualism, the movement identifiedaround Base 36, though declaration has never been his register: he resists the artist-as-personality, preferring the works to circulate as what he calls documents of collapse ratherthan declarations of intent. "Media is both the subject and the medium," he has said. "Theworks attract spectacle because they press on fault lines: money, violence, counterculture,nationhood. But the core is philosophical."