Douglas Gordon, the Turner-prize winning artist, has vowed never to accept a public commission in Scotland again, accusing Edinburgh University of humiliating him by criticising one of his works.
The Glasgow-born artist, who represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, has pulled out of a project to produce a centrepiece for the university's main library after it was deemed not "positive" enough.
Gordon said the final straw was when university officials told him he would have to pay for his travel and accommodation to attend the inauguration of the newly refurbished building.
The world-renowned artist, who is best known for his award-winning film celebrating the prowess of the French footballer Zinedine Zidane, had proposed inscribing a wall in the library with the words: "Every time you turn a page, it dies a little". The inscription was to have been in gold letters.
Gordon, who now lives in Berlin, travelled to Edinburgh to confront his critics and was apparently given the go-ahead by university officials.
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However, when he learnt that he would have to pay his own way to attend the inauguration, after rescheduling a planned exhibition of his work in Tel Aviv, he decided to pull out.
Several members of the university's advisory board are understood to have opposed the tone of the installation, claiming that it was overtly negative.
Gordon told the Art Newspaper that he felt humiliated. "I will never again accept a public commission in my home country," he is reported to have said. "I felt I was being treated like a 16-year-old apprentice and not a professional.
"When it turned out that not only did I have to pay for everything myself, but the artists were not even mentioned on the invitation [to the inauguration ceremony], it all became too much."
He then wrote to the university stating: "It has become impossible for me to work with the commissioning body."
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Gordon, who won the Turner Prize in 1996, was reportedly given a budget of £20,000 to produce the work, a relatively modest sum for a public commission.
While money was not the problem, Gordon said he wanted people to know why he had pulled out.
"Many artists are treated disrespectfully by the institutions they are making commissions for," he is reported to have said. "Most think they cannot afford to say no, but I can."
Professor Andrew Patrizio, who sat on the university's advisory panel and supported Gordon's work, describing it as "poetic", said that the artist had not been briefed to produce a celebratory, positive installation.
"Several people felt that the wording was not celebratory enough for the opening of a library, even though the artist had not been briefed to create a 'positive' commission," the professor is reported to have said.
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"Though one could read it negatively, it is important to stress that nobody had ever asked the artist for something celebratory."
A spokeswoman for Edinburgh University said: "Art always stimulates debate and that is something that, as a university, we absolutely welcome.
"However, it would be entirely inappropriate for us to elaborate on the private discussions we have with individuals or organisations when we seek to commission work from them."
Gordon's black and white film about Zidane is owned by the National Gallery of Modern Art.