{"id":8152,"date":"2024-01-22T13:37:18","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T12:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"\/blog\/?p=8152"},"modified":"2024-01-25T12:26:28","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T11:26:28","slug":"cash-is-scarce-money-fleeting-in-a-flash-fight-interest-ling-live-art-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/2024\/01\/22\/cash-is-scarce-money-fleeting-in-a-flash-fight-interest-ling-live-art-money\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cCash is scarce, money fleeting in a flash! Fight interest! Ling live art money!\u201d …"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cCash is scarce, money fleeting in a flash! Fight interest! Long live art money!\u201d …<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Lili Reyels | 28 December 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 thus it stood in the strategy paper1<\/sup> of the group \u201cIo\u00eb Bsaffot\u201d for their action \u201cBone money experiment \u2013 artists make money\u201d, which the lyricist and poet Bert Papenfuss wrote.2<\/sup> Dr Lili Reyels, head of the DHM collection on financial and economic history talks about this \u201cart money\u201d, which was launched 30 years ago as an art action in Berlin.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so it happened some 30 years ago, in December 1993, that the question \u201cCan you pay here with bones?\u201d near Kollwitzplatz in Berlin and in parts of the district of Mitte could be answered with \u201cYes\u201d. Three years after reunification, this happening was not meant as an anarchistic currency reform nor did it reflect annoyance with the new pan-German currency. Instead, it was about a humorously and cleverly staged art action of the gallery \u201co zwei\u201d in Oderberger Strasse under the direction and organisation of the artist and gallerist Wolfgang Krause. The end effect was that the artists raised their name recognition and were able in a playful way to make people aware of the pressing need for money in their metier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Altogether 55 individual art banknotes resulted from this get-together of international and German artists in East and West. Numbered consecutively and bound in a wad of bills by a bank wrapper, the notes were perfectly suited for collectors from the beginning and were sold as a complete set for 1,000 DM \u2013 in December 1993 to the Deutsches Historisches Museum as well. In this way the art notes arrived in the DHM\u2019s financial and economic history collection. The gallery published the \u201cbone banknotes\u201d in its role as \u201cDecentral Bank\u201d. A normal photocopier served the artists as the \u201cbanknote printing press\u201d, after which the notes were signed by hand. 100 copies of each of the artists\u2019 bone notes were printed, so that the total emission value amounted to 106,000 DM.3<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The validity of the bone notes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bonus was that the \u201cbones\u201d, which were created a complementary currency or \u201cfree-money\u201d (Freigeld), continually lost value. Following Silvio Gsell\u2019s theory of depreciate money, this was aimed to prevent money-hoarding by collectors or art speculators. This is also where the name \u201cbone money\u201d came from, which refers to the philosopher Diogenes, who had suggested making money out of bones, because the dreadful smell created when the bones were stored would prevent hoarding. A contemporary observer puts it this way: \u201c(G)enuine art is false money; when false money is put to use it becomes real money, whereby after art money\u2019s inflationary depreciation vis-\u00e0-vis the DM, it can, of course, rise again in DM value after completion of the action.\u201d4<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Swiss artist G.P. Adam created an original sticker for shops that accepted bone notes as a means of payment, including a bone logo announcing: \u201cWe accept bones.\u201d And so it was possible to drop by the shop \u201callet m\u00f6gliche\u201d in Schliemannstrasse and buy the morning newspaper with bone notes, to take breakfast next door at the \u201cSchliemann\u201d caf\u00e9, to buy a record at \u201cOM\/Sounds\u201d in Sretzkistrasse, and in the evening to pay for a beer at the \u201cPinte\u201d in Lychener Strasse, all with bone money.5<\/sup> Change was given in real money. The participating businesses could exchange the bone notes in the gallery for real money or keep the notes as artworks or capital investments. Two sample books were kept in the \u201cInitiative Committee\u201d, i.e. the gallery, to certify the authenticity of the art banknotes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Themes of the bone notes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The themes of the art banknotes varied from the satirical to the ironic or the abstract \u2013 and they naturally often had to do with bones. Many of them exemplified the typical style of the artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n