Editing K Foundation (section)

==''Money: A Major Body of Cash''==
During the buildup to the presentation of the K Foundation art award to Rachel Whiteread on 23 November 1993, the K Foundation presented their first artwork to the press. ''Nailed To A Wall'', "the first of a series of K Foundation art installations that will also include one million pounds in a skip, one million pounds on a table and several variants on the theme of Tremendous Amounts Of Folding", consisted of one million pounds in £50 notes, nailed to a large framed board.<ref name="KellyQ"/> ''Nailed To A Wall'' had a reserve price of £500,000, half the face value of the cash used in its construction, which ''Scotland on Sunday'''s reporter Robert Dawson Scott was "fairly confident... really was £1 million [in cash]". The catalogue entry for the artwork stated: "Over the years the face value will be eroded by inflation, while the artistic value will rise and rise. The precise point at which the artistic value will overtake the face value is unknown. Deconstruct the work now and you double your money. Hang it on a wall and watch the face value erode, the market value fluctuate, and the artistic value soar. The choice is yours."<ref name="DawsonScott">{{LibraryOfMu|tl=news|mu-id=364|title=K Foundation tries to turn the art world on its head |last=Dawson Scott |first=Robert |date=28 November 1993 |work=[[Scotland on Sunday]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160916110254/http://www.libraryofmu.net/display-resource.php?id=364 |archive-date=16 September 2016}}</ref>

Collectively, the K Foundation's money-as-art works were titled ''Money: A Major Body Of Cash'', "seven pieces, all involving various amounts of cash nailed to, tied to or simply standing on inanimate objects".<ref name="Reid"/> ''The Face'' magazine neatly summed up the concepts behind the art project:{{cquote|If there is any overriding theme to all this unfathomable rhetoric, it's that money has become the root of all art. The questions posed in the K Foundation's first catalogue all hint at this idea: "How beautiful is money?" "Why do we try and make money measure the immeasurable?" "Have you ever [[wiktionary:shag#Etymology 3|shagged]] somebody who works in a bank?" In short, "What is money?"

To add further weight to this theory, they also pull off a neat conceptual punchline. Their art is made out of cash. The face value of that cash is obvious. The artistic value, until somebody buys it and gives it artistic status, is zero. The K Foundation have put a price on these works precisely halfway between their current monetary value and their artistic value. The joke being that if you were to buy the piece called 10,000 (four piles of mint fifties nailed to a plank of salvaged skirting board) for the asking price of 5,000 (ono), you stand to pocket five grand if you destroy the art and spend the money. Alternatively, hang it on your wall and see the cash value eroded by inflation while the artistic value soars. It's the sale of the century!<ref name="Face"/>}}

During the first half of 1994, the K Foundation attempted to interest galleries in staging ''Money: A Major Body Of Cash''. However, even old friend [[Jayne Casey]], director of the Liverpool Festival Trust, was unable to persuade a major gallery to participate. "'The [[Tate Liverpool|Tate, in Liverpool]], wanted to be part of the 21st Century Festival I'm involved with,' says Casey. 'I suggested they put on the K Foundation exhibition; at first they were encouraging, but they seemed nervous about the personalities involved.' A curt fax from... the gallery curator, informed Casey that the K Foundation's exhibition of money had been done before and more interestingly",<ref name="Reid"/> leaving Drummond and Cauty obliged to pursue other options. The duo considered taking the exhibition across the former [[Soviet Union]] by train and on to the United States, but no insurer would touch the project. Then an exhibition at [[Dublin]]'s [[Kilmainham Jail]] was considered. No sooner had a provisional date of August been set for the exhibition, however, when the duo changed their minds yet again. "Jimmy said: 'Why don't we just burn it?' remembers Drummond. 'He said it in a light-hearted way, I suppose, hoping I'd say: 'No, we can't do that, let's do this...' But it seemed the most powerful thing to do."<ref name="Reid"/> Cauty: "We were just sitting in a cafe talking about what we were going to spend the money on and then we decided it would be better if we burned it. That was about six weeks before we did it. It was too long, it was a bit of a nightmare."<ref name="NMEScreening">{{LibraryOfMu|mu-id=463 |title=We didn't set out to make a film, we set out to burn £1m |date=16 September 1995 |work=[[NME]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160916115341/http://www.libraryofmu.net/display-resource.php?id=463 |archive-date=16 September 2016}}
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