March 2008 // 100 Dollar, Installation, New York

Value

Our first exhibition in New York took place during the height of the banking crisis in 2007 / 2008. Invited by the Scope Art Fair and in collaboration with Basel artists Pawel Ferus and Adrian Falkner we devised the installation 100 Dollar.

Using the 100 DOLLAR SERIES we first wanted to determine our monetary value as unknowns in the art market. On the other hand, our goal was to use this installation as a visualisation, a portrait of the then abstract money market.

One hundred framed one dollar bills were offered for sale at various prices. The price structure ranged from minus 100 dollars for the first work, to $4.5 million for the last work in the series. The first ten works had a negative value, so the purchaser could take away a free framed dollar and receive money from us on top. Starting with the tenth dollar, we developed an arbitrary price structure: 3 cents, 21 cents, 87 cents, $1.03, $1.69, and so on, right up to $4.5 million.

The dollars sold like hotcakes. Once the selling was underway people were grabbing at the works. In fact it all happened so quickly that we sold the same works two or three times. We were keen to find out when the mood would turn and the visitors no longer saw a valuable artwork, but an overvalued dollar. This occurred at a price of 425 dollars for one dollar.

We’re looking forward to the next exhibition of this work in the future, where a new value will be determined.