K Foundation Art Award - The Amending of Art History

The Amending of Art History

25 witnesses - including art critics, journalists, music industry figures and artists - were invited to participate in the Foundation's "Amending of art history". They were driven in a convoy of white limousines, led by a gold limo, to Heston Service Station where they were handed a press release and £1650 in crisp new £50 notes. The accompanying press release stated that 25 x £1600 collectively made up the £40000 K Foundation prize, and that the extra £50 was for the witness to verify its authenticity by spending it. The witnesses were dressed in fluorescent orange hard hats and safety jackets.

The convoy proceeded to a field patrolled by two orange-painted K Foundation Saracen armoured cars, driven by Drummond and Cauty, broadcasting the K Foundation's K Cera Cera and ABBA's "Money Money Money". Silver-bearded "Mr Ball", the K Foundation's compere, directed the witnesses to nail their wad of money to a board inside a gilt frame, to assemble the K Foundation's prize. Some of the witnesses pocketed all or some of their wad, and the prize money was, according to Danny Kelly, some £9000 short. Mr Ball also directed the witnesses to "view the art": One million pounds in £50 notes, nailed to a large framed board. This was the K Foundation's first art work, 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".

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". 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 ". 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."

Rachel Whiteread had already been notified of her "victory" but had refused to accept the prize or allow the K Foundation to use her name. The motorcade left the site of the amending of art-history and headed back to London, for a showdown with Whiteread on the steps of the Tate. When she again refused to accept the money, the K Foundation explained that it would be burnt. With the crowd of now very drunk witnesses looking on, a masked K Foundation operative (Gimpo) fumbled with matches and lighter fluid. At the last moment Rachel Whiteread emerged from the Tate and accepted the money, stating that she would give it as grants to needy artists.

The next day, the K Foundation's publicist, Mick Houghton, claimed that the voting for the K Foundation's award was supposed to produce a tie, to illustrate the hypocrisy of the Turner award committee, but that strangely the result had been a huge margin of victory for Whiteread. He speculated that the few thousand voters had just liked or rather disliked the sound of her name.

Defending Whiteread, Lord Palumbo told The Guardian that: "Talent at the highest level attracts derision. We must let the artist fail."

Whiteread's sculpture, House, was demolished on 11 January 1994.