Bill Drummond/How to be an Artist

Bill Drummond at the Outpost Gallery in Norwich..Photograph © Jason Bye. tel: 07966 173 930...Bill Drummond is renowned for his controversial artistic and musical projects. He has been manager of Echo and the Bunnymen, been to number one in the charts with the KLF, and in the name of art burnt £1,000,000 (one million pounds). His latest project is an exhibition, performance and book named ‘How To Be An Artist.’  .In 1970, at the age of 17, Bill Drummond tried to walk across Iceland from top to bottom and failed..In 1994 Richard Long walked across Iceland from top to bottom and succeeded. This walk was a work of art.. In 1995 Drummond brought a photograph and text work by Richard Long.  It was called A Smell Of Sulphur In The Wind and cost $20,000.  It depicted a stone circle constructed by Long while on his walk across Iceland. Drummond hung the work on his bedroom wall and was happy..In 1998 Drummond realised that his relationship with A Smell Of Sulphur In The Wind had become non-existent.  An idea evolved that would rectify the situation. He would sell it for the original $20,000; return to Iceland with the $20,000 in $1 bills; bury the money in the middle of Richard Long’s stone circle; take a photograph of the enriched stone circle; and complete his walk across Iceland. Back home, he would develop, print and frame the photograph identical to the Richard Long original; call it A Smell Of Money Underground and hang it on his bedroom wall in the hope that his relationship with the work would be rekindled..In 2000 Bill Drummond changed his mind. Instead of selling the Richard Long to one lucky art collector he gridded the whole thing up into 20,000 sections. His thinking was that if he cut out and sold off each of the sections to 20,000 individuals the burden of owning the art would be shared.   Drummond did not take into account the logistics of doing this and by September 2004 he had not sold many more than 5,000 of the sections but the process had spawned much