Fall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Back to School Moon<\/p>\n
David Little has Embarrassment of Riches divided into three sections:\u00a0 Currency, Space, Rituals and Style.<\/p>\n
Currency<\/strong><\/p>\n Abe Morrel makes pictures of currency.\u00a0 In Embarrassment of Riches he has two photographs, one of gold bars and the other of Swiss Francs.\u00a0 The photograph at the right has this title:\u00a0 39 Gold Bar: $15,372,742 (11 AM\/GMT-3\/13\/08): $988.25\/oz Zurich, Switzerland<\/strong>.\u00a0 The full title is important because Morrel, who likes the materiality of currency, also comments on value.\u00a0 As the title suggests, value has an ephemeral quality, pegged to an exact moment, uncertain and socially determined.\u00a0 Yesterday gold reached a new all time high of $1,300 an ounce.\u00a0 Allison suggested an interesting addition to this photo:\u00a0 a digital readout of the price of gold as it fluctuates.<\/p>\n This ephemeral quality of value made me reconsider the meaning of currency.\u00a0 Currency is just that, value at the current moment.<\/p>\n Also in the currency section is a beautiful and initially puzzling image.\u00a0 Amidst a north woods setting, pine trees and a gray sky, a glittering metal abstraction snakes just along the forest border, extending as if to infinity along with the edge it defines.\u00a0 What is it?\u00a0 An oil pipeline carrying oil from northern Alberta.\u00a0 Ironically, and I suspect unintentionally, this image meshes with a current Sierra Club initiative aimed at bringing awareness to the very high proportion of Minnesota’s oil supply that comes from the Alberta Tar Sands, an oil source that combines wilderness despoliation with climate changing fossil fuel emissions.<\/p>\n An inventory of lamps, members of the Kuwaiti stock exchange sitting in white robes on red leather couches arranged in conversational squares, two cars-a Ford and a Lexus with Chinese models draped sinuously over them and the Luc Delahaye image I talk about below complete the Currency section of the show.<\/p>\n With one exception.\u00a0 A sock.\u00a0 That’s right, a man’s sock, displayed on a podium under a plastic vitrine, draped as if just taken off and perhaps thrown on the floor.\u00a0 How does this fit in the currency section?<\/p>\n Christian Jankowski works with video installation and performance art.\u00a0 He is the artist behind the sock.\u00a0 In Embarrassment, in the Rituals and Style section, a Jankowksi piece called, Strip the Auctioneer, shows over and over again.\u00a0 It features a genuine Christie’s auctioneer, videotaped by Jankowski in the process of selling first his pocket handkerchief, then his suit coat, a shirt, two shoes and two, wait for it, socks!\u00a0 The auction was a benefit for an arts school, so the bidding was genuine.<\/p>\n David says he doesn’t know whether it is the right sock or the left.\u00a0 It makes a difference in terms of value:\u00a0 the right sock sold for $3,047 and the left for $3,324.\u00a0 Of rituals associated with the life of wealth, an auction at Christies or Sothebys must be close to the top, perhaps after certain prestigious horse races.\u00a0 Oh, by the way, this photograph shows the auctioneer offering the final item for sale in Jankowski’s piece, the hammer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Back to School Moon David Little has Embarrassment of Riches divided into three sections:\u00a0 Currency, Space, Rituals and Style. Currency Abe Morrel makes pictures of currency.\u00a0 In Embarrassment of Riches he has two photographs, one of gold bars and the other of Swiss Francs.\u00a0 The photograph at the right has this title:\u00a0 39 … Continue reading Global Wealth in our Gilded Age: Currency<\/span>