K Foundation

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K Foundation

An early K Foundation advert: "Time is running in"
Country United Kingdom
Years active 1993-1995
Past members Jimmy Cauty
Bill Drummond

The K Foundation was an art foundation set up by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty in 1993 following their 'retirement' from the music industry. Essentially the K Foundation was an artistic outlet for the post-retirement income from the duo's recordings as The KLF. From 1993 to 1995 they spent the money in a number of ways including a series of Situationist-inspired press adverts and an extravagant subversion of the art world, in particular the Turner Prize. Most notoriously, when their plans to use banknotes as part of a work of art fell through, they burnt a million pounds in cash.

The K Foundation announced a 23 year moratorium on all future projects beginning in November 1995. They also indicated that they would not speak about the burning of the million pounds during the period of this moratorium.

Contents

[edit] Context

In the early 1980s, British musician and artist Jimmy Cauty was the guitarist in an underachieving pop/rock band, Brilliant.[1] Brilliant had been signed to WEA Records by A&R man Bill Drummond,[2] formerly a member of the Liverpool group Big in Japan,[3] the manager of The Teardrop Explodes and Echo & The Bunnymen,[4] and co-founder of the independent record label Zoo Records.[5] In 1986, Brilliant released their one and only album - Kiss The Lips Of Life - before splitting up.[6] In the same year, Drummond left WEA Records to record a solo album.[7] Whilst out walking on New Year's Day, 1987, Drummond hit upon an idea for a hip-hop record but, he said, knowing "nothing, personally, about the technology", he needed a collaborator. Drummond called Jimmy Cauty who agreed to join him in a new band called The Justified Ancients of Mu-Mu (The JAMs).[8]

The JAMs' debut release, the single "All You Need Is Love", was released as an underground white label on 9 March 1987.[9] At this time, The JAMs identities were unknown,[10] but the 28 March 1987 edition of NME revealed Bill Drummond's involvement.[11] More independent releases followed, all "underground" in nature - attracting the interest of the music press and hitting the lower reaches of the indie charts but not troubling, nor designed to trouble, the heights of the mainstream UK Singles Chart - until, that is, 1988's "Doctorin' the Tardis". The only record to be released by the duo under their new alias, "The Timelords", "Doctorin'" received almost universally terrible reviews ("pure, unadulterated agony ... excruciating";[12] "rancid"[13]) but hit number one on 12 June 1988 and sold over one million copies.[14] Renaming themselves The KLF, the duo had a string of top 10 hits in the UK, Australia and various European countries, including "What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)" (UK #5, October 1990); "3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)" (UK #1, top 5 in the USA, Australia and Sweden, January 1991); and "Justified and Ancient (Stand by The JAMs)" (top 5, November 1991).[15] The duo also released the critically acclaimed and seminal ambient house album, The KLF Chill Out,[16] and the #1 album The White Room, which the All Music Guide said "represents the commercial and artistic peak of late-'80s acid-house".[17]

The KLF had become one of Britain's biggest bands. And yet, suddenly, in 1992 they machine-gunned a music industry audience at the 1992 BRIT Awards (albeit with blanks) and quit the music business.[18]

By their own account, neither Drummond nor Cauty kept any of the money that they made as the KLF; it was all ploughed back into their extravagant productions. Cauty told an Australian Big Issue writer in 2003 that all the money they made as the KLF was spent, and that the royalties they accrued post-retirement amounted to approximately one million pounds:

“ I think we made about £6m. We paid nearly half that in tax and spent the rest on production costs. When we stopped, the production costs stopped too, so over the next few months we amassed a surplus of cash still coming in from record sales; this amounted to about £1.8m. After tax we were left with about £1m.[19] ”

Although the duo had deleted their back catalogue in the UK with immediate affect, international licensees retained the contractual right to distribute KLF recordings for a number of years. The KLF, like any other artist, were also entitled to Performing Right Society royalties every time one of their songs was played on the radio or television. Rather than spend these earnings or invest them for personal gain, the duo decided the money would be used to fund a new art foundation - The K Foundation.[20] "Having created an artistic machine that created money", said GQ Magazine, "they [then] invented a machine for destroying it."[21] Quite what the Foundation, this money-destroying machine, would do with the million pounds plus was still undecided.

Music journalist Sarah Champion pointed out (prior to the million pound fire) that, "Being 'in the money' doesn't mean they'll ever be rich. [Drummond and Cauty will] always be skint, but their pranks will get more extravagant. If they earned £10 million, they'd blow it all by buying Jura or a fleet of K Foundation airships or a Van Gogh to be ceremonially burned."[22] "There are things we'd like to do which we haven't done.", Drummond told a journalist in 1991. "Totally ludicrous things. We want to buy ships, have submarines. They really are stupid things I know, but I feel confident that in the event of us selling ten million albums we would definitely go out and buy a submarine....Just to be able to say 'Look we've got a submarine and 808 State haven't'."[23]

[edit] K Foundation adverts

The first manifestation of the mysterious K Foundation was a series of adverts in UK national newspapers in 1993. The first adverts, in July 1993, were cryptic, referring to "K Time" and advising readers to "Kick out the clocks".[24] There was also an advert for their single "K Cera Cera" which was "Available nowhere ... no formats" and which was not planned for release until world peace was established.[25]

"When the first in a strange series of full-page ads appeared in The Independent on July 4", said The Face, "people started whispering. The cultish rhetoric, the unfathomable "Divide and Kreate" slogans, the K symbols, all suggested that the kings of cultural anarchy were back."[26][27] Each advert cost between £5,000 and £15,000.[28]

[edit] Turner Prize subversion

Main article: K Foundation art award

The 1994 K Foundation award was an award given by the K Foundation to the "worst artist of the year". The Foundation commissioned more press adverts, instructing readers to "Abandon all art now"[29] and then inviting to them to vote for the worst artist of the year.[30] The 1993 Turner Prize was being judged at the same time, and, perhaps not coincidentally, both awards had the same shortlist of four artists.[31] The prize being offered by Drummond and Cauty was £40,000 which was double the £20,000 offered for the Turner Prize.[32]

Channel 4 Television broadcast coverage of the Turner Prize, during which three more K Foundation adverts were broadcast — these announced the "amending of art history".[33] During the evening, Rachel Whiteread was announced as the winner of both the Turner Prize and the K Foundation award. Whiteread initially refused to accept the K Foundation prize, but after being told that the money would be incinerated, she reluctantly accepted, with the intention of donating £30,000 to artists in financial need and the other £10,000 to the housing charity, Shelter.[34][26]

[edit] Money: A Major Body Of Cash

During the build up to the presenting 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.[32] 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."[35]

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".[20] The Face magazine neatly summed up the concepts behind the art project:

“ 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 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![26]

 ”

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, 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",[20] 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 USA, 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."[20] 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."[36]

[edit] The K Foundation burn a million quid

Main article: The K Foundation burn a million quid

On the 23 August 1994, in a boathouse on the Scottish island of Jura, Drummond and Cauty incinerated £1,000,000 in cash.[37] The burning was witnessed by an old friend of Drummond's, freelance journalist Jim Reid, who subsequently wrote an article about the ceremony for The Observer.[20] It was filmed on Super 8 by their friend Gimpo.

A film-still from the book The K Foundation Burn a Million Quid
A film-still from the book The K Foundation Burn a Million Quid

Reid admitted to first feeling shock and guilt about the burning, which quickly turned to boredom. The money took well over an hour to burn as Drummond and Cauty fed £50 notes into the fire. Drummond later said that only about £900,000 of the money was actually burnt – the rest flew straight up the chimney.[38] The press reported that an islander handed £1,500 into the police; the money had not been claimed and would be returned to the finder.[39][40]

On 23 August 1995, exactly one year after the burning, Drummond and Cauty returned to Jura for the premier screening of the film,[41] now known as Watch The K-Foundation Burn A Million Quid. The film was then toured around the UK over the next few months (plus one showing in Belgrade), with a Q&A session at the end of each screening where members of the audience asked Drummond and Cauty why they burnt the money and also offered their own interpretations.[42]

[edit] Moratorium

Drummond and Cauty quickly became bored of questions about their burning of one million pounds.[citation needed] As a result, Drummond and Cauty signed a "contract", agreeing to wind up the K Foundation and not to speak about the money burning for a period of 23 years. The contract was signed on the bonnet of a rented car which, they claim, they then pushed over the cliffs at Cape Wrath. The moratorium was first announced in the obscure "Workshop For A Non-Linear Architecture" bulletin in November 1995;[43] this was followed on 8 December 1995 by an advertisement in The Guardian:

“ On 5 November 1995, Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond signed a contract with the rest of the world agreeing to end the K Foundation for a period of 23 years.

This postponement provides opportunity of sufficient length for an accurate and appropriately executed response to their 'burning of a million quid'. The K Foundation's fate now lies irrevocably sealed in the imploded remains of a Nissan Bluebird nestling among the rocks 600 feet below Cape Wrath, Scotland.[44][45]

 ”

The final act of the K Foundation was distributing a van load of Tennent's Super - a high-alcohol-content lager - to London's street drinkers on Christmas Day 1995. Recalling The JAMs' 1987 single, Down Town, this was the second occasion in which Cauty and Drummond juxtaposed the spirit of Christmas with the plight of the urban alcoholic homeless. However, the Foundation discovered that their choice of location for this endeavour — near Waterloo Station on the South Bank — was unusually devoid of homeless people, many of whom were in homeless shelters for the day. "That was a pity", said Jimmy Cauty. "If you are down-and-out, would you rather have a bowl of soup or a can of Tennent's?"[46]

Drummond and Cauty would next work together in 1997, when they attempted to "Fuck the Millennium" as 2K (music) and K2 Plant Hire (conceptual art).

[edit] K Cera Cera and The Magnificent

The only musical work to bear the name of the K Foundation was "K Cera Cera", released as a limited edition single in Israel and Palestine in November 1993. An amalgam of "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)" and John Lennon/Yoko Ono's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", it was credited to the "K Foundation presents The Red Army Choir". Originally intended for release when "world peace [is] established" (i.e. never and in "no formats"),[25] the Israeli release was made "In acknowledgement of the recent brave steps taken by the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)".[47] Said Drummond: "Our idea was to create awareness of peace in the world. Because we were worried it would be interpreted by the public as an attempt by The KLF to return to the music world on the back of a humanist gimmick, we decided to hide behind the Foundation."[48]

Also made by the duo during the K Foundation's existence, reported by the NME as a K Foundation work, but officially attributed to "The One World Orchestra featuring The Massed Pipes and Drums of the Children's Free Revolutionary Volunteer Guards", was "The Magnificent", their contribution to the charity album Help.[49] The song, a drum'n'bass version of the theme tune from The Magnificent Seven with vocal samples from DJ Fleka of Serbian radio station B92, was recorded on 4 September 1995. On 5 September 1995, Drummond and Cauty claimed they would "never make any more records". Drummond said, "What do you expect us to do, go and make a jungle record?"; Cauty added "Yeah, like a jungle novelty record with some strings on it or something. It would just be sad wouldn't it? We're too old." NME gleefully informed their readers, "The K Foundation's contribution to the 'Help' LP is a jungle track."[36] Help was released on 9 September 1995.

In November 1995, the BBC aired an edition of the Omnibus documentary series about The K Foundation entitled "A Foundation Course in Art".[50] Jayne Casey (Drummond's former bandmate from Big in Japan) jokingly scolded Drummond on continuing to claim that he and Cauty were retired from the music business, as, she said, he had the DAT (digital audio tape) in his pocket. At another point in the film, Cauty is shown rummaging in a bag for the DAT of "The Magnificent". Drummond is clearly heard to say "Make sure it isn't the DAT with 3 tracks on it". Only "The Magnificent" was ever released.

[edit] Notes & references

  1. ^ Robbins, I., "KLF", Trouser Press magazine (link). Retrieved 20 April 2006.
  2. ^ LeRoy, D., Brilliant biography, All Music Guide (link)
  3. ^ "Big in Japan - Where are they now?", Q Magazine, January 1992 (link)
  4. ^ "Tate tat and arty", New Musical Express, 20 November 1993 (link)
  5. ^ Reynolds, Simon, Rip It Up And Start Again: Post-punk 1978-1984, ISBN 0-571-21570-X
  6. ^ LeRoy, D., Kiss The Lips Of Life review, All Music Guide (link)
  7. ^ Shaw, W., "Special K", GQ Magazine, April 1995 (link)
  8. ^ BBC Radio 1 "Story Of Pop" documentary interview with Bill Drummond. First BBC broadcast believed to have been in late 1994, and was transmitted by Australian national broadcaster ABC on January 1, 2005. Transcript taken from the KLF FAQ.
  9. ^ Longmire, Ernie et al. KLF discography Compiled by Ernie Longmire, this has been the authoritative KLF discography on the internet for some 10 years or more and has been the subject of long-term scrutiny and peer review by KLF fans and collectors. It is now maintained by the fan site klf.de. Retrieved 19 June 2006.
  10. ^ Underground Magazine, March 1987 (link)
  11. ^ "World Domination Part 458", New Musical Express, 28 March 1987
  12. ^ "Doctorin' the Tardis": Review (May 1988), Melody Maker (link).
  13. ^ Wilkinson, R. (1988), ...Ford Every Scheme, Sounds (link).
  14. ^ "Who Killed The KLF?", Select, July 1992 (link).
  15. ^ See The KLF discography for a table of chart positions and references.
  16. ^ For reviews and references, see Chill Out (album)
  17. ^ Bush, J., The White Room review, All Music Guide (link)
  18. ^ "[1992] had been the year of Bill's 'breakdown', when The KLF, perched on the peak of greater-than-ever success, quit the music business, (toy) machine gunned the tuxedo'd twats in the front row of that year's BRIT Awards ceremony and dumped a sheep's carcass on the steps at the after-show party." Martin, G., "The Chronicled Mutineers", Vox, December 1996 (link)
  19. ^ Butler, B., interview with Jimmy Cauty for The Big Issue Australia, 18 June 2003 (link)
  20. ^ a b c d e Reid, J., "Money to burn", The Observer, 25 September 1994, passim (link)
  21. ^ Shaw, W., "Special K", GQ Magazine, April 1995 (link)
  22. ^ Sharkey, A., "Trash Art & Kreation", The Guardian Weekend, 21 May 1994
  23. ^ Morton, R., "One Coronation Under A Groove", New Musical Express, 22 January 1991 (link).
  24. ^ K Foundation advertisement ("Divide & Kreate"), Guardian Weekend, 3 July 1993 (link) and New Musical Express, 3 July 1993 (link)
  25. ^ a b K Foundation advertisement ("K Cera Cera"), New Musical Express, 10 July 1993 (link)
  26. ^ a b c "K Foundation: Nailed To The Wall", The Face, January 1994 (link)
  27. ^ "The kings of cultural anarchy" refers, of course, to The KLF.
  28. ^ Sandall, Robert, "Adding to the confusion; K Foundation's new ads", The Times (London) ISSN 0140-0460 , 12 September 1993, Features section.
  29. ^ K Foundation advertisement ("Abandon All Art Now"), Guardian Weekend, 14 August 1993 (link)
  30. ^ K Foundation advertisement ("Let The People Choose"), Guardian Weekend, 18 September 1993 and The Sunday Times, 19 September 1993
  31. ^ Ezard, J., "Worst art hoaxers' scam goes kaput", The Guardian, 30 August 1993 (link)
  32. ^ a b Kelly, D., "Million Dollar Bash", Q Magazine, February 1994, passim (link)
  33. ^ K Foundation television advertisements, Channel 4, 23 November 1993 (link)
  34. ^ This was announced in an advertisement placed by Whiteread in Art Monthly, January 1994. See Image:Rachel Whiteread's K Foundation award advert.jpg for a scan.
  35. ^ Dawson Scott, Robert, "K Foundation tries to turn the art world on its head", Scotland on Sunday, 28 November 1993 (link)
  36. ^ a b "We didn't set out to make a film, we set out to burn 1m", New Musical Express, 16 September 1995 (link)
  37. ^ "One million Quid" in British slang
  38. ^ Simpson, D., "It's not haute cuisine", The Guardian, 20 May 2004 (link)
  39. ^ Bowditch, G., "Duo with £1m to burn leave island guessing", The Times, 4 October 1994 (link).
  40. ^ McKerron, I., "Duo Burn £1M In Midnight Madness", Daily Express, 1 October 1994 (link).
  41. ^ Banks-Smith, Nancy, "From cash to ash", The Guardian (Manchester), 30 August 1995, page T.009
  42. ^ See, for example: Harris, John, "Who wants to be a millionaire?", Q Magazine, November 1995 (link)
  43. ^ Home, Stewart, "There's no success like failure", Variant, Volume 2 Number 1 (Winter 1996), p18 (link)
  44. ^ K Foundation advertisement ("Cape Wrath"), The Guardian (G2), 8 December 1995 (link).
  45. ^ Note that they have spoken about the burning since then to a limited extent (references can be found in The K Foundation burn a million quid, including quotations from Drummond where he expresses regret at burning the money); the "contract" has not been as strictly followed as The KLF's stated intention to delete their back catalogue in 1992.
  46. ^ "English charity gives out beer to London's ranks of homeless", San Jose Mercury, 26 December 1995 (link)
  47. ^ K Cera Cera sleevenotes
  48. ^ "Yasser, they can boogie!", New Musical Express, 13 November 1993 (link).
  49. ^ Discogs.com entry for "One World Orchestra, The" (discogs.com link)
  50. ^ Reviewed by Sutcliffe, Thomas, The Independent (London) ISSN 0951-9467 , 7 November 1995, TV section p24.
The KLF
Bill Drummond | Jimmy Cauty
Also known as
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu | The Timelords | K Foundation | One World Orchestra | 2K | K2 Plant Hire
Main albums
1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) | Who Killed The JAMs? | Chill Out | The White Room
Related articles
Discography | Films | The Manual | Disco 2000 | Space | The Black Room | The K Foundation Burn a Million Quid

Big In Japan | Brilliant | The Orb | Blacksmoke
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