As the economic crisis continues, we all might want to take note of the work of American artist James Stephen George Boggs. Boggs is an American artist best known for his hand-drawn, one-sided copies of U.S. banknotes.
Boggs would meticulously hand draw bank notes and then spend them only for their face value. If he drew a $10 bill, he would exchange it for $10 worth of goods. He would then sell any change he gets, the receipt, and sometimes the goods he purchased as his “artwork.” If the art collector wants the Boggs note, they must track it down himself. Boggs will tell a collector where he spent the note, but he does not sell them directly.
Any person who gets their hands on a Boggs note can usually sell it for much more than its face value: a $10 Boggs note may be worth more than $1,000. Any person who knows about Boggs is likely to accept a Boggs note; for this reason, Boggs prefers to spend his art with people who are unfamiliar with his work. He likes people to make a conscious choice to accept art instead of money, and their knowing how much money his art is actually worth spoils it. He views these “transactions” as a type of performance art, but the authorities often view them with suspicion. Boggs aims to have his audience question and investigate just what it is that makes “money” valuable in the first place. He steadfastly denies that he is a counterfeiter or forger, maintaining that a good-faith transaction between informed parties is certainly not fraud, even if the item transacted happens to resemble negotiable currency.
In this extract from the book ‘Boggs: A Comedy of Values’, author Lawrence Weschler explains how it all works.
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Boggs work is fascinating. I hadn’t heard of him until now. I really like his approach to distributing his work - even though he knows what they can really fetch.
An artist not inspired by profit? Maybe Damien Hirst should take note!
Loving Bogg’s work. It’s a strange world where it is considered illegal to deface actual currency, but creating your own is fine (and in Bogg’s case, I feel, an improvement).
On the subject of defacement (or rightly rectified) currency, this is quite amusing on this April Fool’s Day.
http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2009/03/us-federal-reserve-funny-money.html
The K Foundation Burn a Million Quid is another interesting project that really questioned the value of money and art. For anyone unfamiliar with that story, its definitely worth checking out…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation_Burn_a_Million_Quid
See also Tom Friedman’s dollar bill
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Good afternoon, Happy Fool’s Day!
A drummer, sick of all the drummer jokes, decides to change his instrument.
After some thought, he decides on the accordion. So he goes to the music store and says to the owner, “I’d like to look at the accordions, please.”
The owner gestures to a shelf in the corner and says, “All our accordions are over there.”
After browsing, the drummer says, “I think I’d like the big red one in the corner.”
The store owner looks at him and says, “You’re a drummer, aren’t you?”
The drummer, crestfallen, says, “How did you know?”
The store owner says, “That ‘big red accordion’ is the radiator.”
Happy April Fool’s Day!