Parents delight in telling their kids how much money was worth “back in their day”. When pocket money time comes around at the end of the week, or when the little darlings are squealing for the latest plastic, flashing, automatic toy monstrosity, mums and dads trot out the old stories. “When I was a boy, a penny got you four packs of sweets, a trumpet, a bicycle and a deposit on a mortgage”, Dad harps on, before adding that, despite this, he lived in a cardboard box as a child with just a candle for warmth during winter. Probably.
Anyway, if you find yourself amazed at just how little your money is worth these days, take a look at these images. Below are some of the uses people have put their money to, once it is so devalued it is no longer worth the paper it is printed on.
1. The Zimbabwean Trillion Dollar Ad Campaign
Images: hu1j13
Horror stories about the Zimbabwean economy are frequent and have been for years, but this ad campaign, created by the Zimbawean newspaper, demonstrates just how bad inflation has become. In April 2009, the paper made posters, wall murals and billboards out of practically worthless Zimbabwean money as scathing comment on Mugabe’s economic policy.
The newspaper, founded by Zimbabweans in exile, often comments on the brutal Mugabe regime, the country’s cholera crisis, which Mugabe refuses to acknowledge, the unprecedented food shortages, as well as the terrible state of the economy. Anyone bad-mouthing Mugabe’s moves are penalised. In this case, the paper was hit with an import tax of 55%, making it completely unaffordable for the average Zimbabwean to buy. In an effort to increase readership and raise awareness worldwide of the continuing atrocities of their home nation, the Zimbabwean paper devised the Trillion Dollar Ad Campaign, using the Z$100 trillion dollar note.
2. Kristofer’s Amazing Currency Collages
Image: CrookedBrains
American artist Kristofer cuts up currencies from around the world and secures them together with wax to create enormous, eye-popping collages. Check them out – ranging from fish to idols, his creations are certainly inventive, and look painstakingly intricate. His collage of currencies from across the globe, some of them devalued, is perhaps his most impressive.
3. Maximo Gonzales’ Massive Political Murals
Image: Art Business
In 2008, Argentinian artist Maximo Gonzalez exhibited in the now defunct Queen’s Nails Annex gallery, San Francisco with an installation entitled, ‘Recession – The Alternative Economies of Maximo Gonzales’. Known for his alternative works, Gonazales’ contribution was a comment on the state of international political and economic affairs in the form of a military-style mural made entirely of devalued notes from third world economies.
The large-scale collages portrayed “the relationship between the aesthetic of the political machine that eats forests and defecates televisions and tanks, and the reality of the economic machine that bankrupts developing nations.”
4. Rirkrit Tiravanija’s Relational Aesthetics
Image: J-No
Rirkrit Tiravanija is a Thai-born artist whose installations aim to explore “the social role of the artist using relational aesthetics”. If that’s too theoretical for you, just enjoy the image. Other slogans Tiravanija has printed on currency include the apocalyptic “THE DAYS OF THIS SOCIETY ARE NUMBERED” and the populist “LESS OIL MORE COURAGE”.
5. The Growing Tradition of Moneygami
Image: Close the World and Yaroslav Grechun
The mind boggles at the patience of the people who create these, but there are many of them! Moneygami is a growing art form in which people reinvent the images of leaders on currency, using the rest of the bill to fashion them lovely hats. In this particular example, created anonymously, Mahatma Ghandi has been given a rather dashing top hat using the rest of the paper on the Rupee.
The second image shows Herman Lau’s $Flower in a Pot, giving new meaning to the phrase “growing money”. Made from US$, so far from devalued, it is a complete contrast to the art made from money that has sadly depreciated – there are so many dollars floating about that people are able to spare a handful to make delicate works of art. An entirely different comment on a currency.
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