Later Analysis
In a piece published in 2006, The Sunday Times quoted author James F. English's description of The K Foundation's Art Award as "hostile philanthropy". Sunday Times writer Bryan Appleyard added that the "K Foundation's witty exploitations of artistic greed ... are essential aspects of the prize itself. They promote the prize, reassure the organisers that, culturally speaking, they are in the thick of it and console the artists with evidence that their work provokes strong reactions. More importantly, for English, such conflicts demonstrate the autonomous nature of the event. These prizes should not be seen as any real or lasting judgment about art, but rather as things in themselves."
Some years after the award, Bill Drummond attempted to explain the K Foundation's motives, as he now saw them:
| “ | Most of the people who wrote about what we did, and the TV programme that was made about it, made a mistake. I was only able to articulate it to myself afterwards with hindsight. They thought we were using our money to make a statement about art, and really what we were doing was using our art to make a statement about money. Having arrived at that formula, I'm probably manipulating everything we did to fit into the theory, but we were just getting up in the morning and getting on the phone with each other and saying, fucking hell! So at some points we thought we were attacking the art establishment then we were saying, no that's not what this is about. | ” |
Read more about this topic: K Foundation Art Award