Art and Money — Ra$³4U (2010)

Performance at the San Francisco Art Institute — Anne Bremer Memorial Library.
Photographs by Kathleen Myers

Description:
A 50’ long narrow tunnel/corridor was constructed in the San Francisco Art Institute Anne Bremer Library in an aisle between two bookcases by draping blue plastic tarps over the shelves. I sat at one end with a single hanging bare bulb light illuminating myself folding US one-dollar bills into cubes. At the other end was a small astronomer’s reflecting telescope aimed and focused on my hands making the cubes. A telescope of this type turns the image upside down. An assistant helped people view the activity through the lens. I was dressed in a metal fabric suit and yellow tie. My hair was dyed white blonde and combed in a stylized design reminiscent of the pre-Beatles 1960s. I made eight folded cubes using US one-dollar bills during the time I was allotted for the performance by the Institute. I signed them and gave them away to whoever showed up to the performance.

RA Statement:
“Trying to escape the obsessive importance of money in American culture is like trying to stop the Earth from rotating.” Ever since I started making art in the 1960s there has been a contentious relationship between art and money. In the late 60s there was a lot of criticism about how the purity of contemporary art or the pursuit of some higher level of perception was being undermined by crass commercialism. Indeed, it was making works of art just another commodity that embraced and indulged in inferior levels of intellectual merit. Some labeled such artists “producers” and “opportunists” who had jumped on the bandwagon of a style in order to call attention to their works.