Crisis can have different effects and causes but they have in common a high degree of exchange market pressure. While the debate about how did finance cause the crisis, what should we do to manage its effects, and did the crisis involve culpable irresponsibility or misjudgement by groups like investment bankers and regulators is still rife, the main consequences - including recession, job losses and widespread suffering at various levels - continue.
Culture has suffered from state spending cuts to the arts and cultural institutions, an assault that damaged quite a few independent artists unable to find the funds needed for their projects.
Dutch artist Dadara tried to fight back the trend in the early 2011 by launching his Exchanghibition Bank. Originally created to fund his own projects, the bank soon turned into an ongoing investigation into art and money, the role of banks in our lives, capitalism and economy, offering a fresh perspective on the current financial system, totally alienated from our society.
Little by little, the Exchanghibition Bank became an art project in itself, a sort of itinerant exchange managed by Dadara himself very aptly clad in a rather interesting futuristic banker suit that betrays his arty origins in the paint splattered trouser hems and shoes.
The bank allows to change Euros into other types of banknotes designed by Dadara himself and printed in bright colours on holographic foil with values going from zero to infinite passing through one million. The banknotes - that can be bought also from the artist's online shop - will very aptly expire on December 21, 2012.
After taking his rather unique bank and Transformoney Tree project to the Burning Man event in the Black Rock Desert at the end of August, Dadara stopped in November at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam and at Geldmuseum in Utrecht.
You first launched The Exchanghibition Bank to finance your own projects: in which ways did the crisis, the current financial system completely detached from society and the hopelessness of the economic situation influenced your project?
Dadara: When I launched my Exchanghibition Bank at the beginning of 2011 I announced that I started my own bank as an artist, because governments had no money for Art, but lots of money to bail out banks. When I started I was mostly obsessed by art, and it somehow puzzled me that art seemed to be mostly valued because of its financial worth in our society. I mean, when do you ever read about art on the frontpage of a newspaper? When a Picasso gets sold for a hundred million bucks, or a Warhol for forty million, or the Lehman Brothers Bank goes bankrupt and their art collection gets auctioned for millions. But what does that say about their spiritual, artistic or social value? So it started by looking at the value of art. I wasn't that interested - yet - in money, because, as so many artists, I come from an anti-money background. But a lot has changed since: as a true bank director I became fascinated and even obsessed by money! As an artist you need to study your material: when I use acrylic paint, I have to learn how it works, when I use explosives, I have to learn about them, and now that I was using money, I needed to study money. And that's when I quickly became fascinated by this abstract material, not backed by any tangible asset, existing in a purely virtual way, and created as debt with one click of a button by banks. So, in a way, there was very little to be against, or anti-money. It's just an agreement, a form of energy, which, when it is exchanged, has value. But we don't want to exchange it, we want to hoard it on our bank accounts, and treat it as something special. And at the same time it influences all our perceptions of value.
Money-wise which was the most shocking thing you found out while doing the background research for the Exchanghibition Bank project?
Dadara: Money has become such an abstract tool that it seems to have become totally detached from our real society. It is shocking to see how for some people in the financial industry these numbers have become more important than real lives and people, and the fact that their decisions might hurt lots of people have never bothered them. I think that, just as in medicine, ethics should become an integral part of banking. It's also in a way shocking to see how little value the money has that banks produce. The fact that money is created as debt out of thin air doesn't make it look very valuable, but it is shocking that because of that same debt people might lose their house and other possessions of real value. Most recently, I was fascinated by the Rolling Jubilee initiative, which originated from the Occupy movement, and which is bailing out people instead of banks, but was shocked to realise that debt has become a commodity which is being traded, and there are markets where people trade debts. But in this case, it is great that debt can be bought for very little money by the Strike Debt movement. And of course the way money works, makes us increasingly turn nature into product, and human relations into services, and I wonder how long we can continue doing that.
There is a strange and perverse connection between art and money: from private rich and wealthy collectors who often buy artworks according to trends without really understanding much about art in general, to galleries exploiting artists. From an artist's point of view what's the most alienating thing about this relationship?
Dadara: I have been creating art since I was a little boy, and have always done this because of an inner urge - I had to create. It's part of myself. The reason for creation is not earning money, but then again in this world we need to earn money. I like to compare the world to a giant playground, but at the same time we are playing on parking lots, and when we can't fill the meter we get towed away. The auction Damien Hirst organised himself in 2008 of his work was fascinating for me: it raised over 100 million British Pounds, and almost 40% of the buyers had never bought contemporary art before. And, as I mentioned before, it almost seems to be the only reason for mentioning art nowadays, the fact that it makes a lot of money. But I think art is very personal, and emotional and spiritual, and can have great social value. And all these values are as, or even more important than, financial value. So there seems to be a growing gap between “the Art World", and "the Artist's World". For years I used to destroy my big projects. I feel that when a project, or art, a new youth movement or a new piece of music comes into the world it has a certain kind of power, or magic. Eventually that magic fades, and it turns into a business, and starts earning money. In order to preserve that magic, I blew up projects, set them on fire, or smashed them to pieces, preserving that energy, and turning it into a kind of Urban Myth.
Art can unite, but money definitely divides – in your opinion, when does money unite?
Dadara: I think money would unite, if we would realise that whenever we use money, it's not a one-way transaction. We do not just buy something from someone, we give something back as well - money. And when we realize that money is just an agreement, and can be used as energy to make things happen, we should realise that the act of giving the money is as important as receiving what we bought. And we should only give it to those we love, and do things we love. Also using money as a means of exchange instead of this magical thing, which seems to have taken control of our lives.
In a recent talk you mention the KLF, in which ways did they inspire you?
Dadara: In 1994 the KLF decided to quit the music industry, and did so in a very radical way. They also destroyed their back catalogue, so people could not order their records anymore, and then, after paying taxes, had one million British Pounds left. They took the money with them to a small island off the coast of Scotland, and burnt all in a fireplace. For years, I didn't know if I thought that it was brilliant or stupid, but when, after many years, I still could not make up my mind, I decided it was great. It was a gesture that made me think and that also costed me lots of money, because it probably was influential in my decision to destroy quite a few of my artworks. Years later I found some video footage of a talkshow, filmed shortly after they burnt the money. People from the public were upset and told them that they should have thought about the kids in Africa who don't have food. And they replied: "We did not burn any loaves of bread, we just burnt pieces of paper". In retrospect that is pretty visionary.
There is an interesting fashion connection in your Exchanghibition Bank installation as you wear a kind of futuristic banker-meets-artist suit, did you design it?
Dadara: I designed the suits in cooperation with Thera Hillenaar, who is a fashion designer blurring the line between art, fashion, and performance, and also my girlfriend. We also cooperated on my Checkpoint Dreamyourtopia project which was a border control checkpoint to enter your own Dreams, and was operated by the Department of Dreamland Security. All their employees were dressed in pink brain combat fatigues, and I, as the Head of the Department, was wearing a big pink brain jester hat. So there is definitely a connection between “fashion”, if that is the right word, and my work. I like to combine various disciplines, and I am increasingly combining painting, design, sculpture, installation, and performance.
You recently took your Exchanghibition Bank to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, but also to Amsterdam Central Station and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam: what was the reaction of people and what are you working on at the moment?
Dadara: I like the combination of cultural places, such as the museums, but also reaching the 'real' world. After all, money is something that all of us are using every day, so it's important to reach a lot of different people: we also operated the bank at Occupy and in shopping centers. I also think that art is a great way of raising questions about aspects of our society, and only operating in the white cube environment of the Art World can make raising those questions a bit too harmless, too safe. The context of the placement of a piece is important, and adds to its meaning. I also started a new Art as Money project: the Transformoney Tree. The Transformoney Tree is a tree, which has the Exchanghibition banknotes hanging as leaves from its branches. Participants can glue real money onto the tree itself. By gluing real banknotes onto the tree itself, and drawing on them, these banknotes become financially worthless, but get turned into art. This interaction transforms the tree, but also our own perceptions of value, art, and money. It’s an exchange of value in a world, where only financial values seem to get valued. But isn’t what we value most “priceless”? Interaction with the tree could help us with the shift from a fragile mono-money-culture to a diversified world of many alternative currencies, providing tools for exchange of various forms of value as a necessary alternative for our current debt-based-system, which focuses on infinite economic growth on a finite planet. Are the roots of this tree the roots of all evil or the roots of all happiness? Hopefully, they’ll become the roots of a new consciousness. It's amazing and beautiful to see how much impact it has on people's life when they draw on a banknote. Even though everybody uses money every single day, rarely do people think about what it is, how it may be refined or redefined and changed. It's just a tool, and tools can change in an ever evolving society, but money has always been presented to us as an absolute given fact. By drawing on money, people regain power, and look in a total different way at what it is and represents. That alone I think is a big accomplishment.
Image credits:
Drawing by Dadara; money paintings courtesy of Dadara and Famous Auctionhouse
Image 5, 10 and 11 by Dadara
Image 2 by Eric Bouvet
image 4 by Kees Spruijt
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