Masterpiece

In 1995, Drummond bought A Smell of Sulphur in the Wind by Richard Long, for $20,000. In Drummond’s own words, he ‘fell in love with Richard Long’s work because’ “it was art by walking and doing things on his walks.” Five years later, Drummond felt that he was no longer "getting his money's worth" from the photograph. He decided to try to sell it by placing a series of placards around the country. When this failed to result in its sale, in 2001 he cut the photograph and mounting card into 20,000 pieces to sell for $1 each. His plan, upon retrieving the $20,000 in cash, is to walk with it to the remote place in Iceland where Richard Long had made the photograph and bury it in a box beneath the stone circle. He will then take his own photograph of the site, bring it home, frame it, hang it in the same place in his bedroom where the Richard Long hung, and call the new work The Smell of Money Underground. Drummond's books How to be an Artist and a later soft-bound edition titled $20,000 recounts this story.

The original experience has been fatally compromised, said one curator, since no one is certain anymore of exactly what they are looking at - a genuine masterwork, or a baloney.