In Money We Trust: Destruction
“Just Buy It Already”
Ink on paper, chrome plated plastic orb
25 x 38 in
August, 2018
In the course of human history, currency has shifted from precious metals to fiat (paper). This past century has seen a further shift from physical currency to systems of credit and debt. At its core, this intangible system is based all on our trust in each other. Now, money is not gold, but trust. However, trust can be manipulated. It can be made fiction. It can be distorted. Trust can be created just as it can become destroyed.
Art has told a parallel story to economy. Painting has never been without identifications of value and worth. Just as money only has value when it flows, paintings gain value when collected and resold. In many ways, art has been as much an intangible construct as economic systems.
The first piece created for In Money We Trust series, Just Buy it Already depicts Christopher Wool representing one aspect of the manipulation of trust. If we use currency as a measurement for value itself, Christopher Wool may be the most valuable artist, having sold one of the highest priced paintings by living artist in this contemporary world.
Creating an alternate universe for art, Metzinger’s command of formal principles of surface fragmentation and plane of shape led me to ponder on the reality of space. In it, I presented this piece as “du spherism” by reflecting the true flat world of a distorted and incomprehensible drawing, and making a reality through the puzzled globe. Only with this globe positioned in the certain position and imagination piecing together the puzzle can this world be represented coherence.
Like this illustration, we have become a society that gives meaning and definition to the absurd. Christopher Wool uses hand-drawn monospaced lettering to subvert commercial ideals by, as if given by guidelines to the border of a stencil. This idea of trying to make it look like Christopher Wool, yet still unlike one due to the spacing, I strongly fucked up this mimic up.
The piece also involves the audience taking out their phone and trying to inspect on the things reflections on the globe. Sadly, the more money you have to buy a better phone with a better camera, the more you can see. For example the words inscribed on the dollar bill: In Money we Trust.”