In 1993,
British artist Rachel Whiteread received a nomination for the coveted
Turner Prize as administered by the Tate Gallery in London. At the
same time, she received a less prestigious nomination for the worst
work of public art from The K Foundation. The latter appeared to be a
dubious reward but the concept of “dubious” is a subjective one.
In 1992, the
government began demolishing a neighborhood of decrepit Victorian
houses and apartment buildings. Rachel Whiteread had an idea for an
art project and succeeded in purchasing one of the homes before the
demolitions began. At the same time, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty,
the two members of an acid house band called The KLF were wondering
what to do with all the royalties they had made from record sales.
That was neither here nor there for Whiteread; she was busy making
plans to gut the Victorian and fill it with concrete. By the Autumn
of 1993, the outer walls and scaffolding used for support during the
construction of the sculpture were removed. The new public art
object, titled House, was revealed: a white concrete cast of
a house that looked like a giant backwards E from one angle while
from every other angle it looked like what it was, a giant concrete
cast of a house. Some people thought of it as another concrete
monstrosity in a country that did not need any more concrete
monstrosities. Others thought the work disrespected the history of
the neighborhood, a lower class enclave being razed for
gentrification. Whiteread, to some, looked like an upper class snob
who, without any knowledge or interest in the people who had lived
there before, dumped tons of money into a project that would soon be
demolished anyway.
Earlier that
year, strange advertisements began appearing in British newspapers.
With big letter K’s and slogans like “Divide and Kreate”, The K
Foundation started a buzz in the underground art scene amongst other
places. Some of the ads announced the release of a new single called
“K Cera Cera”. The song would be unavailable in any format until
word peace was achieved or so the announcements proclaimed. “Abandon
all art now” was another slogan used.
When the
announcements for the four finalists in the 1993 Turner Awards were
made, The K Foundation released another bunch of advertisements, this
time asking readers to vote on the worst work of public art made
during 1993. Not coincidentally, the same four finalists for the
Turner Prize were also the four choices on offer for the K Foundation
award. Of even more interest was the reward the K Foundation winner
would receive. 40,000 British pounds were to be given out, twice the
amount of the more prestigious Turner Prize winnings.
Drummond and
Cauty were putting together their first installation piece. Called
Money: A Major Body of Cash, it
consisted of piles of banknotes nailed to various everyday objects
like a boat, a table, and
other common things. One piece titled Nailed To a Wall had
one million pounds sterling nailed to a wooden board. They intended
to sell it for 500,00 pounds, half the value of the cash used to
execute it. As The K Foundation explained, the buyer of the art
object had a choice; they could either destroy the piece by removing
the bills and doubling the value of their initial investment or they
could wait and see if the monetary value of the work would fluctuate
or even increase in the future. Drummond
and Cauty tried unsuccessfully to have their installation pieces
shown in the Tate Gallery as well as other major art museums in
Europe. Nobody wanted anything to do with it though. The pair tried
to make arrangements to tour with it across either Russia or America
but no insurance company would underwrite the project. Finally they
succeeded in negotiating a chance to show it in Dublin’s Kilmainham
Jail but in the end they chose not to.
When
the beginning of 1994 rolled around, announcements were made for the
winner of the Turner Award. Rachel Whiteread won for her public
sculpture House. At
the same time time, the winner of the K Foundation prize was
announced. Rachel Whiteread won for her piece House also,
dubbed the worst piece of public sculpture in London. When contacted,
Whiteread at first refused to accept the prize of 400,000 pounds but
it was explained to her that if she did not take it, the money would
be destroyed. In the end she decided to accept the prize. She gave
one part of the money to a charity and another part of it to a fund
that helps young artists without money get started in their careers.
But
The K Foundation’s piece Nailed To a Wall still
did not attract any buyers. The two artists were not happy with the
idea of showing their work in an Irish jail, so they came up with a
better idea. They burned the entire one million pounds in an
incinerator on the Scottish island of Jura. The event was filmed by a
friend named Gimpo using a handheld Super 8 camera. Not all the money
burned though; some of it went up the chimney and blew away in the
wind. The hour long film was titled Watch The K
Foundation Burn a Million Quid. Drummond
and Cauty had finally caught the art establishment’s attention.
Several galleries and lecture halls invited them to show their film.
They pair toured the U.K., with a suitcase full of ashes leftover
from the fire. After playing the movie, most often to small
audiences, the floor was opened up for a question and answer session
to get the audiences’ reactions.
Opinions
were mixed. Many could not understand why they would destroy a small
fortune in that way. The K Foundation could not precisely answer why
they did it either. They did say that royalties from The KLM sales
gave them enough money to live comfortably and everything else they
made was just extra cash they didn’t need. Some people objected to
the waste of money that could have been used for a good cause but a
counter-argument to that might be that public works of art are just
as much a waste of money. How often do members of the general public
look at some mediocrity
of an abstract sculpture on a street corner or an island road divider
and ask why somebody would make such a thing? And couldn’t they
have put the money to better use like feeding poor people or paying
for children’s education? Does
anybody actually benefit from public art, especially when no one
likes it or understands it?
The
K Foundation later tried to sell the ashes from the burnt money but
nobody wanted it.
To
wind the anti-art event down, The two members of the K Foundation
rented a car in Scotland
and drove
it to the cliffs of Cape Wrath. They signed a contract stating that
Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty would begin a moratorium and never talk
about the burning of their money for 23 years. After signing the
document, they locked it in the car and pushed it over the cliff. The
event was well covered by the press.
World
peace never happened. Seeing as they had previously announced that
such an accomplishment would be the necessary precondition for the
next KLF single to be released, they found a way to get through their
own loophole. While The K Foundation were busy at work burning cash,
they quietly released their next single “K Cera Cera”. But
it was put out in as a limited edition without any publicity, solely
in Israel and Palestine. Due to breakthroughs in negotiations between
the Israeli government and the Palestinian Liberation Organization,
the song was meant to encourage further discussions on solving
political conflicts without war. Furthermore, the song was not
officially
done by The KLF since the song was released under the band name The K
Foundation Presents the Red Army Choir. Five years later, militants
from the Gaza Strip embarked on a long-running campaign of suicide
bombings and terrorist attacks.
The
K Foundation finally announced that they would never record another
song ever again. But soon after that announcement, NME ran
an article stating that a new K Foundation track had been released on
Help, a CD produced to
raise money for charity. The drum ‘n bass track named “The
Magnificent” was credited to The Massed Pipes and Drums Of the
Children’s Free Revolutionary Volunteer Guards. The single
immediately rose
high up in the British music charts.
On
Christmas Day of 1995, the K Foundation decided to hold one last
happening. They filled up a van with cases of Tennant’s Super, a
high-alcohol content beer. They drove to the Waterloo subway station
in London with the intention of distributing it to the homeless
people who ordinarily camped out there. When they arrived, the scene
was deserted. The homeless population had accepted invitations to be
fed dinner at charities located near that area.
That
was the final happening of The K Foundation.
References
Dwyer,
Simon, editor. Rapid Eye 3. Creation
Books, London: 1995.
Home,
Stewart. Neoism, Plagiarism & Praxis. AK
Press, Edinburgh & San Francisco: 1995.
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