Art imitates money (or vice versa) in US exhibit

Afp
Saturday 18 June 2011 19:00 EDT
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Money and art have long been partners but never more so than in a new installation consisting entirely of $1 bills on the walls of New York's Guggenheim museum.

The installation, which will be on display until November, features dollar bills blanketing nine walls in the famous museum - exactly 100,000 of them.

The German-born artist Hans-Peter Feldmann came up with the idea after winning the money in the Hugo Boss Prize in 2010.

"The installation, which uses money that has previously been in circulation, extends the artist's lifelong obsession with collecting familiar material into simple groupings that reveal a nuanced play of similarity and difference," according to assistant curator Katherine Brinson.

So in a world of multi-million dollar canvases, what's this work worth?

"Bank notes, like artworks, are objects that have no inherent worth beyond what society agrees to invest them with," Brinson said. "Feldmann raises questions about notions of value in art."

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