Making a controversial artistic statement that results in widespread media coverage places whatever issue being highlighted at the forefront of popular discussion and thought, if only for a time.

In this case, the ramifications of the public questioning and examining the fundamentals of ownership, the distribution of wealth and its potential injustices etc - are difficult to quantify, but can be assumed to be valuable.

Anything controversial by nature is also likely an under-examined yet extremely important issue. It's controversial partly because it's not been sufficiently examined or discussed to the point of understanding or resolution.

> the ramifications of the public questioning and examining the fundamentals of ownership

"The public"? Which public? No politican from Kier Starmer rightwards is seriously doing anything of the sort.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/government-breakfast-b...

They achieved that some 30 years later we are having this discussion about their art.

I hope that we all are able to be that creative - that we achieve something that humankind speaks of 30 years later.

I feel this thread is evidence that the question provoked by the performance is actually quite important, certainly more so than the average “but is this art” meta-debate.

Someone in this thread was upset that the artists burned more money than the average person sees in their lifetime. Another commenter questioned why this would be more unfair than all the “regular rich” who we know spend many times that amount of money on a yacht or another property that they don’t need.

Why are there two moral categories for wealth? Someone who is understood to not have money by default — like an artist — and then gets a sudden windfall is expected to use it responsibly. But someone who is simply rich has no such obligations and doesn’t answer to society. And yet the former category is a rounding error but the latter control the majority of resources on this planet.

Those that have everything change nothing, those that have nothing change everything or at least they try.

> Someone who is understood to not have money by default — like an artist [...]

I'm sure we can all think of a few counter-examples to that one!

Rihanna: net worth: ~ $1.4 billion Paul McCartney: net worth: ~ $1.2 billion Bono: net worth: ~ $700 million

> then gets a sudden windfall is expected to use it responsibly

"Expected" - by whom?

I may be just a bit jaded, but we should perhaps consider the hypothesis that for very successful artists it's a simple commercial decision to signal you're acting responsibly with your wealth, otherwise your much, much less wealthy customers who are buying your output might start to notice, disapprove, and ultimately stop buying your output. One could call this "fiduciary duty to oneself", really.

There is an category of artist who become overnight famous and cannot deal with the sudden interest and wealth.

Here I'm thinking of young Johnny Depp or Kurt Cobain or Amy Winehouse, to give just three examples.

There are artists who do art for arts sake and not with the aim of getting wealthy. When these artists do have success, they can potentially become overwhelmed.

>What does that mean? I mean really mean?

What does anything "really" mean? We are all going to die anyway.

Keeping it in a less grand perspective, it means they made some people think and discuss the incident, debate the role of money and how we treat it, and made a fine punk gesture in the process...

It might even spoke to some people that money is not some God we should workship, and that being irreverant and having fun might be worth more!

The KLF may of thought money had something to do with god or at least some version of god, given their deep interest and knowledge of the occult.

All hail Eros

Eris, not Eros.

Same thing :)