If you are ever lucky to come across one of New York-based artist Skye Nicolas’ specially marked one dollar bills, don’t just give them away to anyone. These dollar bills are considered works of art, and have been purchased by art collectors for as much as $1500 per bill.
The bills are the artist’s humorous, but thought-provoking statement on how some of the most humble and often ridiculous things are bestowed incredible value by the contemporary art world.
If a dollar bill was purchased for five hundred dollars as a work of art, would a hundred dollar bill stamped with the same little red heart be worth five thousand? Perhaps. This is what is so ludicrously fascinating about the world of modern contemporary art. Wealthy people will pay large sums of money for just about any piece of art they fancy, and simply because they can; even if it’s what most people of the general public would identify as an ordinary dollar bill. Buy Some Love questions and challenges the concept of value and property, revealing playful irony and humor in the idea that an artist is capable of reassigning value, and in fact increasing the monetary value of actual currency, simply by transforming it into collectible art. Modern society seems to have been enslaved by the financial system, feeding on the visceral impulse that wealth can buy just about anything.
Link to the Syke Nicolas’site [NSFW].
