Commercialism Illustrated: The Room Adorned With 100,000 Dollar Bills

With the economy in a state of uncertainty at the moment, it’s very interesting to me to see how people choose to spend their money. I like to write about it sometimes, not from the perspective of judging whether or not I agree with it, but more from the standpoint of just being an observer.

Yesterday I wrote about The World’s First Gold & Diamond Contact Lenses which cost fifteen thousand dollars a pair. Dang, I’d hate to accidentally tear one of those badboys with my fingernails. Today it’s a money art installation that grabbed my attention. What you see below is a room in the Guggenheim Museum whose walls are covered in one-dollar bills, all totaling $100,000.

Last fall, 70-year-old German artist Hans-Peter Feldmann received $100,000 for winning the Biennal Hugo Boss Prize award. He was the oldest recipient of this prestigious award, and to show his appreciation, he wanted to create a room that actually showed how much money this really is. His assistant took about 13 days to pin 100,000 one-dollar bills to these walls so people could walk in and view that quantity of money.

Of course, being the conceptual creative man that he is, he didn’t just use random one-dollar bills. He made sure to use old, tattered and rough looking bills to symbolize commercialism and the focus we put on money in our society. Mr. Feldmann explained that back when he started creating art in the ’50s, there was no monetary value to it. Artists created simply for the joy of creating; however, now many times it’s different. It’s all about the money.

Via: [This Blog Rules] [New York Times]