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Peggy Diggs stamps currency with questions regarding the nature of wealth
and poverty. The questions were developed after speaking with poor people
in Greensboro, NC. From these conversations, the artist devised a series
of questions aimed principally at the wealthy. These include: In what
ways has money hurt you? What do you think is gained in poverty and lost
through wealth? Do you feel the need to be paid for everything you do?
These questions were stamped onto the edges of all bills that passed through
her wallet over a period of four months.
Jed Ela uses currency as his medium, weaving together one-dollar bills
into objects: ladders, baskets, etc. He then offers these objects for
sale at the value of the currency, requiring that buyers also agree never
to resell them for a greater value. This agreement displaces the artistic
status of these pieces, forcing them to remain as representations of economic
capital.
In the period of several months preceding the exhibition, Rainer Ganahl
sent over 100 postcards to the gallery. The artist made his own postage
stamps which he used to post the cards. Carrying the words, "Al Qaeda",
"Afghanistan," and others, these stamps passed undetected through
the US postal service, and most arrived at the gallery. With the Twin
Towers printed on the image side and printed messages like, "Freedom
Fries" and "Why Do They Hate Us" on the other, this project
engaged with the political aftermath of the September 11th attacks, probing
the very systems that represent security.
Lan Tuazon’s "Promissory Notes" is an artist-made currency
project that provides a medium for trade, barter, and gift-giving. Tuazon
distributes packets of her bills and obtains the written promise of their
recipients to follow a proscribed method of continued distribution. In
this project, art becomes money, bypassing the commodification of art
in a way that is simultaneously crass and liberating.
Pawel Wojtasik’s ten minute video, Dark Sun Squeeze, presents the
steady churning of a sewage treatment plant. As the end-point of the food
chain, this video presents the bottom-line of all human economies - and
the complex technology we have had to develop to both cope with and hide
this basic human reality. Dark Sun Squeeze uses light, movement and repetition
to transform feces, a commodity with negative value, into something beautiful,
processed for consumption.
Rutherford
Chang received a BA from Wesleyan University in psychology in 2002. Recent
exhibitions include Global Priority, Jamaica Arts Center, Jamaica, NY,
and AIM 23, Bronx Museum of Art, Bronx, NY.
Peggy Diggs received an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1975. Her
work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States. Recent
projects include Do Not Sleep, a digital mural with teens presented at
the Eagles’ Stadium, Philadelphia, PA, in 2003, and Finding Home,
a banner project presented at a homeless women’s shelter in Chicago.
Jed Ela received a BA in studio art from Wesleyan University and Master
of Science in Visual Studies from Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in 2003.
Rainer Ganahl attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New
York, in 1990-1991 and is a Master of Philosophy and History, University
of Innsbruck. Recent exhibitions include The Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia
University Museum, New York , Museum of Modern Art, MUMOK, Vienna, Baumgartner
Gallery, New York and Market Value, Cuchifritos, New York.
Lan Tuazon attended the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and
Art, received an MFA from Yale University, and attended the Whitney Museum
Independent Study Program. Her work was recently included in the exhibition
"Mirror" presented by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
Pawel Wojtasik received an MFA from Yale University in 1996. He has exhibited
at Artists Space, New York, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New
York, and the National Museum, Minsk, Belarus.
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