ART & MONEY
In every country, each bank note is a work of art in its own right. While Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are becoming a part of the economy, money in its everyday physical form such as the humble banknote, with its virtuoso designs and illustrations of founding figures, symbols of power, conveys the values and imagination of a nation and a people.
This is the daring, generous project of the patient and passionate collector Dominique Barlaud; it tell the story of money. For more than 10 years, Barlaud has collected bank notes from many different countries and eras, carefully chosen for their aesthetic value, and passed them on to the 1001 artists who make up this virtuous circle. With 1001 artists and 1001 original creations, this immense project gives artists the chance to express their own point of view on the world of finance.
1001 bank notes: a lesson in economics
Graffiti artists, cartoonists, illustrators, colourists, painters and stencil artists, all areas of street art are represented in the MONEY FOR NOTHING project. All the artists turned each paper note into a unique piece through the magic of art, allowing them to increase the financial value of a simple piece of paper. These artists knew exactly how to work with the material’s unique properties to create a one-of-a-kind bank note.
It is a subtle customisation project, as the notes mustn’t be completely covered in order to preserve their meaning. Words, faces, tags, bodies, as many graphic variations as there are artists, each in keeping with their own style: radical, sublime, ironic, insolent, mysterious, naive, political, even erotic… A lesson in economics and a lesson in style, with the list of artists turning the heads of art lovers and gallery owners alike. Some have already submitted their work, such as Stew, Den End, Freaks, Oeno, Anne-Laure Maison, M. Chat, Christian Guemy (C215), Miss Tic… And a little birdy told us that PMH and Ernesto Novo have started working on theirs!
This is the other paradox of the project: the aim is not to make profit. The goal of MONEY FOR NOTHING is to share all of these treasures with the public in an exhibition held in a venue large enough to house the collection, and to hold an auction from which all the profits will go towards funding an environmental and animal conservation project. More to come on this project from POSCA in 2021.
Visit the MONEY FOR NOTHING website
On Instagram and FB
T-KID the Terrible’s rouble!
Graffiti artistic T-Kid 170 is a living legend of the street art scene. He painted his first tags in the 70s in the gritty heart of the Bronx, birthplace of the emerging underground movement. Inspired by comic book culture and old-school hip hop, the artist interweaves XXL b-boys with 3D tags in saturated colours on every surface he can get his hands on; trains, walls or paper.
For the MONEY FOR NOTHING project, T-Kid customised a very large Russian bank note valued at 500 roubles dating back to 1912. The artist chose to embellish his with a smart-looking b-boy, true to his hip hop roots, to playfully poke fun at the allegorical figure of the former Russian Empire of 1912.
T-Kid 170 on FB and Instagram
our interview with T-Kid 170