K Foundation Burn a Million Quid was a work of performance art executed and filmed on 23 August 1994 in which the K Foundation, a British art duo consisting of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, burned £1 million (equivalent to £ million in ) in the back of a disused boathouse on the Ardfin Estate on the island of Jura in the Inner Hebrides. The money represented the bulk of the K Foundation's funds that had been previously earned by Drummond and Cauty as the KLF.
The event was recorded on a Hi-8 video camera by K Foundation collaborator Gimpo. On the first anniversary of the burning, the film was released as Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid and was toured around the UK, with Drummond and Cauty engaging audiences in debates about the burning and its meaning. In November 1995, the duo pledged to dissolve the K Foundation and to refrain from public discussion of the burning for a period of 23 years.
Drummond discreetly spoke about the burning in 2000 and 2004. Initially, he was unrepentant, but in 2004 he admitted that he regretted burning the money. The self-imposed moratorium officially ended on 23 August 2017, 23 years after the burning, when Cauty and Drummond hosted a debate asking "Why Did the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid?" during their "Welcome to the Dark Ages" event.
Collaborator Chris Brook edited and compiled a book, K Foundation Burn A Million Quid, which was published by Ellipsis Books in 1997. It compiles stills from the film, accounts of events and viewer reactions, and an image of the brick that was manufactured from the fire's ashes. A film consisting of a static three-minute shot of the brick, This Brick, was shown at London's Barbican Centre prior to Drummond and Cauty's performance as 2K in the same year.
Background As the KLF, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty were the biggest-selling singles act in the world for 1991. They had also enjoyed considerable success with their album The White Room and a number one hit single – "Doctorin' the Tardis" – as The Timelords. In February 1992, the KLF staged an incendiary performance at the BRIT Awards, and retired from the music industry shortly thereafter in typically enigmatic fashion.
By their own account, neither Drummond nor Cauty kept any of the money 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:
Initially the KLF's earnings were to be distributed by way of a fund for struggling artists managed by the K Foundation, Drummond and Cauty's new post-KLF art project, but, said Drummond, "We realised that struggling artists are meant to struggle, that's the whole point." Includes a full transcript of an interview by John Dower and Dave Greer with Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty and other guests on the "Everything You Know Is Wrong" show, Subcity Radio, Glasgow, 3 November 1995. Instead the duo decided to create art with the money. Nailed to the Wall was the first piece of art produced by the Foundation, and the major piece in their planned art exhibition, Money: A Major Body of Cash. Consisting of one million pounds in cash nailed to a pine frame, the piece was presented to the press on 23 November 1993 during the buildup to the Foundation's announcement of the "winner" of their "worst artist of the year award", the K Foundation art award.
Decision and burning During the first half of 1994, the K Foundation attempted to interest galleries in staging Money: A Major Body of Cash, but 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", 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. An exhibition at Kilmainham Jail in Dublin was then considered, but no sooner had a provisional August date been set for it than 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." 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."
The journey from deciding to burn the money to deciding how to burn the money to actually burning the money was a long one. Jim Reid, a freelance journalist and the only independent witness to the burning, reported the various schemes the K Foundation considered. The first was offering Nailed to the Wall to the Tate Gallery as the "1995 K Foundation Bequest to the Nation." The condition was that the gallery must agree to display the piece for at least 10 years. If they refused, the money would be burnt. A second idea was to hire Bankside Power Station, "the future site of the Tate Gallery extension and an imposing building downstream from the South Bank", as a bonfire venue. In typical KLF 'guerrilla communication' style, "posters were to appear on 15 August bearing the legend 'The 1995 K Foundation Bequest to the Nation', under which would have been an image of Nailed to the Wall on an easel and two flame-throwers lying on the floor. On 24 August a new poster would go up, exactly the same as the first except that this time the work would be burnt."
The K Foundation's ultimate resolution for their one-million-pound "problem" was rather less showbiz, but dramatic nonetheless, the Foundation having decided that making a public spectacle of the event would lessen its impact. On 22 August, Reid, Drummond, Cauty and Gimpo touched down at Islay Airport in the Inner Hebrides and took a ferry to the island of Jura, previously the scene of a wicker man burning ceremony by the KLF. Early in the morning of 23 August 1994, in an abandoned boathouse on Jura, Drummond and Cauty incinerated the money. The burning was witnessed by Reid, who subsequently wrote an article about the act for The Observer, and it was filmed on a Hi-8 video camera by collaborator Gimpo. As the burning began Reid said he felt guilt and shock. These feelings, he reported, quickly turned to boredom.
The money took well over an hour to burn as Drummond and Cauty fed £50 notes into the fire. According to Drummond, only about £900,000 of the money was actually burnt, with the remainder flying straight up the chimney. Two days later, according to Reid, Jimmy Cauty destroyed all film and photographic evidence of the burning. Ten months later, Gimpo revealed to them that he had secretly kept a copy.
Film Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid starts with a short description of the event, and then consists of Drummond and Cauty throwing £50 notes onto the fire. Burning the entire amount takes around 67 minutes. NME wrote:
In November 1995, the BBC aired an edition of the Omnibus documentary series about The K Foundation entitled A Foundation Course in Art (usually mislabelled as The K Foundation Burn a Million Quid online). Amongst the footage broadcast were scenes from Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid. Thomas Sutcliffe, reviewing the programme in The Independent, wrote:
Screening tour The first public screening of Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid was on Jura on 23 August 1995 – exactly one year after the burning. "We feel we should face them and answer their questions" said one of the duo. The words are attributed to the duo in general and not specifically attributed to Drummond or Cauty. Two weeks later an advert appeared in The Guardian, announcing a world tour of the film over the next 12 months at "relevant locations". The second screening was at In the City music industry convention on 5 September in Manchester. After the film was shown, Drummond and Cauty held a question-and-answer session with the theme "Is It Rock'n'Roll?". A week later, the pair travelled as guests of alternative radio station B92 to Belgrade, where the post-screening discussion was titled "Is it a crime against humanity?" An unauthorised screening at the BBC Television Centre was curtailed and Drummond and Cauty were escorted from the building.
On the weekend of 3 November 1995, the film was screened at several locations in Glasgow, including at football matches involving Celtic and Rangers; a planned screening at Barlinnie prison was cancelled after the Scottish Prison Service withdrew permission. Glasgow's artistic community broadly seemed to welcome the screenings. A further public screening on Glasgow Green on 5 November was announced by various newspapers, but there is no record of the showing having ever occurred. The K Foundation disappeared from Glasgow; they later issued a statement that on 5 November 1995 they had signed a "contract" on the side of a Nissan Bluebird – which had then been pushed over the cliffs at Cape Wrath in northern Scotland – agreeing to wind up the K Foundation and not to speak about the money burning for a period of 23 years.
Despite the K Foundation's reported moratorium, further national screenings of the film organised by Chris Brook took place as planned. At each screening, Drummond and Cauty announced they would not answer questions after the film; instead, they would ask questions of the audience. These screenings were held in Bradford, Hull, Liverpool, Jamaica Street Studios, Cheltenham Ladies College, Eton College, Aberystwyth, Glastonbury Tor, Alan Moore's front room and Brick Lane, London.
The Brick Lane screening – on 8 December 1995 – had been previewed in NME, and was chaotically busy. It was originally planned for a car park, but freezing conditions and snow forced a rethink and the screening was moved indoors, to the basement of the nearby Seven Stars pub. Hundreds of people crammed in to watch the screening, which was eventually abandoned partway through due to the cramped conditions. The NME preview had claimed that after the screening the film would be cut up and individual frames sold off to the public. Gimpo, the owner of the film, had no intention of doing so, but after the screening was nearly overwhelmed by a mob of people wanting to take home a piece of the film.
End of the moratorium Drummond and Cauty ended their self-imposed moratorium on 23 August 2017, 23 years after the burning. "Why Did the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid?" was debated during "Welcome to the Dark Ages", a three-day festival celebrating the launch of their novel 2023: A Trilogy.
Burning as a theme
Ritualistic burnings had already been a recurring aspect of Drummond and Cauty's work. In 1987, the duo disposed of copies of their copyright-breaching debut album—The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu's 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?)—by burning them in a Swedish field. This event was pictured on the back sleeve of their second album, Who Killed The JAMs?, and celebrated in the song "Burn the Bastards". During the 1991 summer solstice, they burnt a wicker man on Jura, as chronicled in the KLF movie The Rites of Mu.