The widely criticised pile of rubbish that won this year's Waikato National Contemporary Art Award was well worthy of the title, says the artistic mastermind behind it.

Auckland artist Dane Mitchell, currently an artist in residence in Berlin, won the $15,000 prize for Collateral, the binned packaging from other award entries that he instructed gallery staff to throw together as his exhibit.

Mr Mitchell said Collateral was neither cynical, provocative, or mocking, but was very context-specific.

"I was interested in exposing or playing with the mechanism of the award itself," he said. "I wanted to utilise the context. The work is quite reliant on the context of the judge and museum being implicated."

He compared his pile of rubbish to Marcel Duchamp's 1919 work, Unhappy Readymade, which consisted of a set of instructions for hanging a geometry textbook in the wind for a designated period of time.

"There is a very long and well established history and tradition of works of this kind. It is not controversial at all. I didn't make it with the expectation of provoking other artists."

Mr Mitchell said he was astonished by the reaction. "Today I had a call from the BBC World Service. I have been surprised by the level of conversation around it, absolutely.

"The form was very secondary to the idea," he said. "I didn't know how it would turn out, but it is quite marvellous looking."

But was it worthy of $15,000?

"As much as any other work in the finals.".

Mr Mitchell would not be sharing the prizemoney with the gallery staff who put it together and defended the $5250 price tag he has on it.