MONEY IS JUST PAPERWORK
September 7th – October 4th, 2012
Project Space
222 East Georgia St.
Vancouver, BC
Good news everyone!
I’ve been working a grant with Project Space so we can have this exhibit for SWARM (Vancouver’s Artist Run Centres anual art extravaganza) in early September. While we haven’t received any funding yet we are going to go ahead regardless. This will be my next major solo exhibition.
Here are some details:
Money is Just Paperwork explores the value of printed paper and the authenticity of print artifacts through analogue collage works, a print-on-demand publication and a panel discussion (distributed via podcast).
Printed paper money, which evolved from promissory notes, obtains fluctuating values assigned by independent investment banking organizations, cultures and governments. Paper bills hold the value of their denominations, and over time become more valuable when the edition of a print is out of circulation (similar to other printed matter, such as hockey cards or vintage publications). However, as these objects of exchange become more valuable to collectors they assume increasing irrelevance in world economies: As major money movements occur almost exclusively by digital means, the bills that the majority of society uses are transformed into tokens of small exchange.
Grskovic will source vintage issues of mass-market magazines like Popular Science and Mechanics, Life or National Geographic from online retailers. He will collect images of money, gold and jewelry, which he will arrange in compositions that deal with representations of wealth and the value of printed paper. This treatment will explore these physical objects’ lack intrinsic value, but will also present them as more precious than their original states by framing them as art and therefore infusing them with social capital.
During the project’s sourcing phase he will collect and document the resultant print ephemera (such as notes and packaging), which will be featured in a publication alongside documentation of the collage works. As image multiples will be collected rather than copied, Grskovic’s work will circumnavigate current laws of redistribution, illuminating moral and legal implications around copyright. This will be the starting place for a panel discussion, which will be recorded and distributed in podcast form.
*photo above is titled, “Me Myself and all My Millions”, 11” x 17”, Analog Collage from sourced printings of a specific issue of National Geographic, 2011.
