Fionnáin reviewed $20,000 by Bill Drummond
Art for the sake of mischief
3 stars
It's hard to know whether this book is made more or less enjoyable if you already know who Bill Drummond is. I have followed his work for years so was prepared for his mischievousness. I was less prepared for his open and honest thoughtfulness. As he described his epic quest to sell a Richard Long artwork that he had once bought and loved for the same $20,000 price that he had originally paid, I laughed a lot at the various side-plots, encounters, and inner monologues about art, the UK, journeys and the rest. Drummond is a genuinely funny and thoughtful writer.
In the end, the project becomes a bit unwieldy and less fun in the epilogues (saved a little by the very last story). Some of the deviations in Drummond's thought patterns become more about his new projects and he seems too distracted to see this through. But maybe that's …
It's hard to know whether this book is made more or less enjoyable if you already know who Bill Drummond is. I have followed his work for years so was prepared for his mischievousness. I was less prepared for his open and honest thoughtfulness. As he described his epic quest to sell a Richard Long artwork that he had once bought and loved for the same $20,000 price that he had originally paid, I laughed a lot at the various side-plots, encounters, and inner monologues about art, the UK, journeys and the rest. Drummond is a genuinely funny and thoughtful writer.
In the end, the project becomes a bit unwieldy and less fun in the epilogues (saved a little by the very last story). Some of the deviations in Drummond's thought patterns become more about his new projects and he seems too distracted to see this through. But maybe that's part of the journey. Like the Long artwork, this project loses its joy over time. Above all that seems to be one of Drummond's obsessions: that art is transient and that it should be. Maybe that's why he loves Long's work so much, and why he stopped loving a photograph that immortalises it.