Posts Tagged ‘Boggs’
“When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money”*…
Further to yesterday’s post (about the relevance of Edith Wharton’s observations of her Gilded Age to ours), Dorinda Evans takes a look at rough contemporary of Wharton’s, and at his (similarly relevant) work…
After supposedly stealing 500,000 francs from his bank, the mysterious Victor Dubreuil (b. 1842) turned up penniless in the United States and began to paint dazzling trompe l’oeil images of dollar bills. Once associated with counterfeiting and subject to seizures by the Treasury Department, these artworks [are nowconsidered] unique anti-capitalist visions among the most daring and socially critical of his time…
The fascinating story of Victor Dubreuil’s cryptic currencies and the questions they raise about value and values: “Illusory Wealth,” in @PublicDomainRev.
For an illuminating look at Dubreuil’s spiritual successor, see Lawrence Weschler’s wonderful Boggs: A Comedy of Values.
For a loosely analogous artist: “Nobody knows what a dollar is, what the word means, what holds the thing up, what it stands in for… what the hell are they? What do they do? How do they do it?”
And for an appreciation of trompe l’oeil (and its influence on Cubism), see “Feinting Spells.”
* H.L. Mencken
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As we contemplate currency, we might pour a cup of birthday tea for English mathematician, logician, photographer, and Anglican cleric, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson– better known as the author Lewis Carroll– born on this date in 1832.
“There is no use in trying,” said Alice; “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
– Alice in Wonderland (nee “Alice’s Adventures Underground,” then “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”)
Oh, and… Happy Mozart’s Birthday!
Going once, going twice…
In the grand tradition of Boggs (i.e., J.S.G. Boggs, whom pre-blog readers will recall), artist Caleb Larsen has created “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter– Perpetual online auction, internet connection, custom programming and hardware, acrylic cube.”
Combining Robert Morris’ “Box With the Sound of Its Own Making” with Baudrillard’s writing on the art auction this sculpture exists in eternal transactional flux. It is a physical sculpture that is perpetually attempting to auction itself on eBay.
Every ten minutes the black box pings a server on the internet via the ethernet connection to check if it is for sale on the eBay. If its auction has ended or it has sold, it automatically creates a new auction of itself.
If a person buys it on eBay, the current owner is required to send it to the new owner. The new owner must then plug it into ethernet, and the cycle repeats itself.
This work is discussed in the catalogue for The Value of Nothing, a 2009 exhibition.
Buy or download it.Follow the current auction here.
TotH to GMSV.
As we wistfully imagine being able to recycle our Hirsts or our Koons, we might turn to our neighbors and and urge them to “Sock it to me!”, as it was on this date in 1968 that Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In premiered on NBC. The series had been spawned by a successful special– in effect, R&M’s homage to Olsen and Johnson (especially Hellzapoppin)– that had aired nine months earlier; in a bittersweet irony, it replaced The Man from U.N.C.L.E. on Monday’s at 8:00p in the Peacock’s schedule.
source: rowanandmartinslaughin.com
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