Today in the New York Times: Brooklyn Woman Finds Counterfeit Penny Made of Gold, here. Also, Jen Graves logs in here. The story has legs. Now that Jack Daws is going to be known as Midas of Small Things, he’s going to see his work reflected back at him from halls of crazy media mirrors.
One distortion is already in play: Daws shelled out $1,000 for the gold in 10 counterfeit pennies. My math has never risen to the status of elementary, but that means $100 per penny. It doesn’t mean that each penny is worth $100. Each of his penny-shaped sculptures is currently worth $1,000. To say it’s worth $100 is like saying a Brice Marden is worth the cost of its oil paint and canvas.
In an essay in Art and Culture published in 1961, Clement Greenberg observed that gold is art’s umbilical chord.
Daws’ pennies are the disinherited kin of Damien Hirst’s For the Love of God. Hirst’s diamond-encrusted skull cost $14 million to produce but is worth whatever the market roller coaster says it is, at least $50 million.
Artists from Gary Hill to Chris Burden
have been working gold into their installations. Only Daws uses what is valuable to impersonate the valueless. If gold is the umbilical chord of art, Daws suggests it is wrapped around the throat of the baby. On that most basic level of their meanings, both Daws and Hirst are on the same page.
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