Only a couple of weeks ago, it seemed that cash would soon become extinct.
No new coins are to be minted this year. A while ago, cryptocurrencies were the future, but they became associated with scams and money-laundering.
There was also NFT mania over non-fungible tokens, digital identifiers used to certify ownership and authenticity of art. NFTs have turned out to be a tulip mania for our time. I hope that the Ashmolean doesn’t get caught out here. Following the British Museum and the Uffizi, it has commissioned an NFT to ‘feature’ in this show. It is, apparently, a ‘single-edition generative AI’.
In 2011, there was a fascinating show at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence which traced the spread of the florin from its first minting in 1237 to its status as the principal currency of international banking and trade.
The Ashmolean concentrates on how money’s political and social influences affect its physical appearance. And it ‘delves into the complex, tense and often humorous relationship between art, money and society’ by considering coins and notes as works of art.
The possibilities for propaganda were recognised in antiquity. For millennia, leading sculptors, artists, printmakers and photographers have been employed to create the most effective messages.
In response, anti-establishment campaigners have repurposed official imagery, and protesters have stamped slogans on coins. And, in a splendidly capitalist manner, artists such as Warhol, Banksy and Boggs have used the imagery of money to make actual money for themselves.
In just 116 exhibits, from a gold aureus of Nero to Susan Stockwell’s Money Dress (1910), via Rembrandt’s etched Goldweigher, French West Africa, the later Habsburgs and the Sezession, the unissued currency of Edward VIII and the Guerrilla Girls, this stimulating show offers a wealth of art and information, conveyed with intelligence and humour.
Money Talks: Art, Society & Power on at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, until 5th January 2025
The Oldie September 2024
