Filthy Lucre

A conversation with an aquaintance revolved around the issue of artists needing to survive and the messy necessity of money/commodities to survive.

In fact, just the day before, I had been listening to an interview on the CBC on the subject of "art money", essentially making transactins using artworks as currency.

This grassroots movement takes the concept of bartering to a whole new plane.

It is best explained on the website, so : "Art Money is an original art object by which we aim to create a global alternative currency. BIAM (Bank of International Art Money) is operated as an artist run organisation in cooperation with the inventor of our content manager program "easy site.""

"Shops and businesses world wide may accept Art Money as payment. When registering the shop or businnes can decide on how many % of a purchase they will accept in art money. Art money as a payment works as an supplement to local currency and many shops view it as a form of discount system. Any company may registre in BIAM free of charge. Registered companies agree to houner the rules for dealing in art money."

This really is an extension of something I had heard about a few years ago in a documentary about an American who would offer artworks which were drawings of money. The FBI and Treasury Department investigated him but could find no fault with his essentially trading obvious works of art for goods. Counterfeiting is passing off fake currency as real currency by means of deception. In fact, he made it clear that these were works of art and no one could be fooled into thinking that they were anything but artworks.

This takes