Page 207 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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178 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

This expensive project was sponsored by veiled and transported to the entrance of the
Artangel, a non-profit foundation which Tate Gallery in a procession of limousines
solicits funds from the private sector for escorted by armoured tanks. Whiteread
contemporary art. The principal corporate arrived three minutes late for the scheduled
patrons were a brewery and a construction presentation ceremony and accepted the
company, but the project was also partly sub- money.
sidized by public funds. Denounced for staging a vulgar publicity
Issues related to the site, financing and stunt, the musicians responded with the pub-
iconography of the work were complex and lication of a catalogue of their own works of
inspired contradictory readings. Even art, all made of banknotes nailed to framed
Whiteread’s choice of materials – poured panels which they offered for sale at half the
concrete – was significant since it made ref- face value of the materials. For £5000 a
erence to the practice of British proprietors collector could buy the artwork called ‘Ten
of blocking toilets in abandoned houses as a Thousand’ (made with £10,000 worth of
way of discouraging homeless squatters. banknotes) and make an immediate profit of
Some saw this as an expression of solidarity £5000 by destroying the artwork and using
with the homeless. However, the work was the currency. Defenders insisted this expen-
located on the site of a planned subsidized diture confirmed the musicians’ genuine
housing development and its presence there commitment to offering a critique of contem-
was delaying the construction of 67 homes for porary art worlds. (The Crown prosecuted
people with low incomes. On 23 November them for defacing currency.)
1993 (one month after completion of the work Dozens of articles about the events and the
and the very day the Turner prize jury artwork were written by journalists, critics
announced its decision), city councillors and art historians. Some found references to
voted for the demolition of the sculpture in feminism and the body in the impressions of
order to allow the construction project to pro- the interior walls. Others likened the work to
ceed as planned (Ellison and Donegan, major monuments of public art and architec-
1993). A professional photographer had been ture. Although art critics were on the whole
hired to document each stage in the construc- delighted with the work, the general public
tion and these images were featured in a lim- and mainstream press reacted with shock,
ited edition publication but Whiteread had amusement and disdain (Farson, 1993).
deliberately avoided publicity before the Cartoons and letters to the editors published
installation was finished in order to maxi- in newspapers ridiculed the artists’ tech-
mize the impact of the completed work niques, questioning their aesthetic worth and
(Lingwood, 1995). After the unveiling a symbolism (Graham-Dixon, 1993). Much
growing crowd of visitors came to see the criticism centred on doubts about claims that
work before it was demolished. the sculpture expressed solidarity with home-
Whiteread issued a statement declaring less people, a sentiment taken up in a cartoon
that she would refuse the X Prize. In response, showing squatters trapped in poured concrete
the K Foundation threatened to burn the (Williams, 1993). The cost of the project left
money at its own award ceremony if she others perplexed. Why spend all this money
didn’t accept it. They invited journalists from on an uninhabitable concrete mould instead
music magazines and the popular press to an of building a real house (Anonymous,
award ceremony held three weeks after the 1993d)? There were also debates about the
Turner Prize awards (Cooper, 1993). Each conditions for the construction of the work.
guest was given a stack of bank notes and The house was the last building situated in an
asked to nail it to a wooden panel in an elab- historic community, but the former owner
orate frame. The finished ‘picture’ made of was an elderly man who didn’t want to leave
prize money was photographed before being and had refused to sell it to the construction