Artists Sells Money at the Mint
Cash and carry: Buy a briefcase of ”money”
by Doug MacCash, THE TIMES-PICAYUNE
Srdjan Loncar and his team of money-makers work to create 500 million dollars in fake money.
What a deal. Artist Srdjan Loncar will sell you $1 million for $500. He’ll even throw in a golden briefcase to help you carry away the loot.
The catch is: Loncar’s money is fake. For the past two months, he and a handful of assistants have been hunkered down in a Central City warehouse, hot-gluing reproductions of $100 bills to blocks of wood, producing $20,000 bundles of “cash.” The imitation treasure was piled in cardboard boxes and soda cases stacked on the floor. Money scraps were scattered underfoot. In the end, Loncar”s team will have created a cool $500 million.
Loncar is one of the 81 official artists in Prospect.1 New Orleans, the city-spanning art exhibit that opened Saturday. Like many of the artists in the show, he hails from another country. But he’s also a hometown boy. Loncar, 37, was born in Croatia, then spent his early childhood in New Orleans, then moved back to Croatia for high school, a stint in the army, and, as he puts it, “a piece” of the Balkan wars in 1991.
After that, he moved back to the Crescent City, where he received a master’s degree from the University of New Orleans. Loncar soon became a star on the local art scene, creating large-scale sculptures coated with quilts of overlapping snapshots. Imagine a life-sized tree with bark made of photos of bark, and leaves made of photos of leaves. Imagine a television covered with photos of a television. Imagine a deer covered with close-ups of deer fur. You get the picture.
And now Loncar has created sculptural stacks of money covered with photocopies of real money. Loncar has placed a huge heap of his fake money in the Old U.S. Mint (part of the Louisiana State Museum) on the edge of the French Quarter — where better? Helpful clerks will sell cases of the fake cash to visitors. The price will fluctuate with demand. And if the money runs out, it runs out. Loncar will be richer; no one will be (much) poorer. It”s all part of the satirical simulated economy that Loncar calls “Value.”
The interesting thing is that Loncar dreamt up his imaginary currency concept long before the recent economic bailout made banking and currency value such a hot topic.
“It’s the cream on the top of the whole project,” Loncar said of his unintentionally perfect timing. “I’m not an economic expert or whatever. It”s a great and crazy coincidence.”
In case you’re wondering, Loncar is not terribly concerned about being accused of counterfeiting. He says the money bands printed directly on his reproduction bills, not to mention the hot glue and wooden blocks, make his money obviously non-negotiable.
VALUE
A PROSPECT.1 NEW ORLEANS EXHIBIT
BY SRDJAN LONCAR
What: An ongoing performance in which the New Orleans art star creates a tongue-in-cheek currency system.
When: Wednesday-Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6, through Jan. 18.
Where: The Old U.S. Mint, 400 Esplanade Ave., 504.568.6968.
Admission: Free.