ARTISTS´ MONEY / művészpénz
György GALÁNTAI /1998
Comments on the 100,000-forint note and the "money auction"
According to the call for projects by the periodical Beszélő, “real” money can only be theoretical but not feasible in a “possible world”, since what is conceived of as “real” always signifies what has already happened, or something that is no longer “possible”. Hopefully, the slogan that money can only be made with money” will be forgotten in a world that has not happened yet, i.e. is “still possible”.
The 100,000-forint note I made reflects this notion. The image of a real 100-forint note from the past superimposed on a real 1,000-forint note which is still valid but is on its way out can be conceived of as a virtually existing real 100,000-forint note. All the possible future worlds are possible because they are extant although invisible when looked at from the present; however, people looking back from the future are able to recognise it as something in the past.
This is how the story goes: once upon a time there was a red one-hundred-forint and a green thousand-forint note. By the way, when superimposed, the two colours and the white paper – just by coincidence – form the Hungarian tricolour, which could even be regarded as meaningful. Reading a hundred and a thousand as a hundred thousand is like decoding, covertly according to a given criterion. The criterion here is the zero point. Science makes its evaluations like art and politics. There is a politician in the one-hundred-forint note: Kossuth, and an artist on the one-thousand-forint note: Bartók. (The proportion is fifty-fifty in the case of other retired Hungarian banknotes, too.)
“Science, art and politics, if condensed into a unified decoding method”, says Vilém Flusser, “can reveal hitherto unsuspected things in the world and in ourselves.” Hungarian money creators accidentally hit on the direction of change, which appears to be taking a reverse path.
“Of course what’s awkward about the inevitable interconnectedness of science with art and politics is that in the future we won’t be able to differentiate between the fictitious and the non-fictitious. If science is unveiled as a fiction, talking about “real reality” will become pointless: “real” is what is coded in works of fiction. Obviously, this is what Nietsche means when he said that art is worth more than reality. Our critical ability – by which we probably mean the ability to distinguish between fiction and reality – will be lost if reading by decoding proves to be reading by an unveiled criterion. Then we’ll have found the secret of critical reading and we can’t criticise anymore: the basis of critical reading is faith that cannot be criticised.” (translated into English from Vilém Flusser: Az írás (Die Schrift), Balassi Publishers, 1997).
I did not make my 100,000-forint note to illustrate the text quoted above, but rather to justify it. Every original work or thought, as much as it is justified by the future – and as much as "it is invisible" now – becomes part of the story, and as the source of knowledge it will subsist for an unforeseeable length of time. If there is any point in dealing with art, if art has any real function – it can be found in situations like this.
The money auction, which was the closing act of the project run by the periodical Beszélő, justified my original idea: money can’t be made with artists’ money. Ben Vautier’s ironic ideas for French art buyers fit in here perfectly: “Create a picture worth one million Francs by gluing 100-Franc bank notes on the canvas.” And another one: “1,000-Franc bank note in a frame, inscribed “Ben’s counterfeit”. Only an object justified by its past can be on an equal footing with money as value, while at the same time money can be made sensitive to anything, it “reacts” to anything if it promises potential growth, since money mostly works for itself. (Unfortunately)
In Beszélő’s concept the money project was an advertising type of cry for help spiced with irony in Vautier’s vein, something that has a good chance of drawing the audience in. The audience did come and some artists also got the point. But using a humorist for the auctioneer to add to the humour of the event actually backfired. It was embarrassing and comical how humour can’t be forced onto art if it doesn’t naturally spring from within. The world is chock-a-bloc with humorists and any search for “humorism” among the isms is a fruitless one, even though it exists: in every good work. And money is just “gaping” and “laughing up its sleeve”, but it won’t create humour. In the end, everone was happy, the artists because they had the chance to give, the money givers were able to buy at reasonable prices and the money that was targeted did come together.
Finally, a quotation from Miklós Erdély: “The giver and the taker are to be warned that the unrectifiable must be left in its totality […]”. (György GALÁNTAI)
(English translation by Krisztina Sarkady-Hart)