Hey, They’re Plastering The Walls with Dollar Bills; Let’s Go!

April 28th, 2011

One hundred thousand $1 bills, to be exact
It was Andy Warhol who said “making money is art”. Now the German artist Hans-Peter Feldmann, who was awarded the $100,000 Hugo Boss Prize in November, doesn’t want art lovers to think about money, but art when they step into a large gallery of the Guggenheim Museum in New York and see a room covered floor to ceiling with 100,000 $1 bills.

Money and art
“I’m 70 years old, and I began making art in the ’50s,” Mr. Feldmann said in a telephone interview from his studio in Düsseldorf, Germany. “At that time there was no money in the art world. Money and art didn’t exist. So for me, $100,000 is very special, it’s incredible, really. And I would like to show the quantity of it.” Describing the installation as “a big statement,” Mr. Feldmann said “it would be a pity” if people think that the exhibition is crass or that he is thumbing his nose in some way at the prize or the money or the Guggenheim. “I am not at all against the museum. It’s great that they have agreed to do this; it is a bit out of the norm.”

The Hugo Boss Prize
The Hugo Boss Prize, established in 1996 by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and named for the German men’s wear company that sponsors it, is given every two years for significant achievement in contemporary art. The winner is awarded not only $100,000, but also an exhibition, which this year runs from May 20 through Nov. 2. Mr. Feldmann is the oldest artist to win the prize, which is generally given to emerging professionals. At the time of the announcement last year, the jury of art professionals defended its decision, saying that Mr. Feldmann epitomized the best of contemporary art right now.

No surprise
When Mr. Feldmann told the Guggenheim curators what he wanted to do, they were not entirely surprised. “We have a history of realizing artists’ visions no matter how extreme,” said Nancy Spector, the chief curator. “We looked at it from every angle to see if it was doable and defendable. It is in keeping with his work.”

Mounting the bills
Officials at the Guggenheim estimate that it will take a team of art handlers about 13 days to pin the used bills to the walls. “The gallery will become a totally immersive environment,” said an assistant curator who is organizing the exhibition. She added that it was particularly important to Mr. Feldmann that the dollar bills be used ones.

Pop art
Since the money is there for the taking, officials at the Guggenheim are planning to have extra guards on duty and security cameras keeping a close watch on visitors. “In the next room you find $10 million paintings, and nobody is stealing them,” Mr. Feldmann said. And although the intent may be different, even Mr. Feldmann acknowledged that his installation had its roots in the Pop Art of the 1960s and ’70s. One obvious image that comes to mind is Warhol’s 1962 silkscreen painting “200 One Dollar Bills,” which sold for $43.7 million at Sotheby’s two years ago.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 28th, 2011 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Economy, Employment, Finance, Money, Personal / Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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