There is really no end to the number of beautiful, expensive objects to buy, about which some might say you’re “throwing money down the drain”.
“The Cure for Greed” is perhaps the one case in which throwing money away — or destroying money, in this case — is absolutely necessary for the creation of the object itself. And you know what? Once you get over the fact that $US10,000 worth of $US50 bills had to be shredded into strips and ground into dust for the sake of art, it’s really quite a beautiful process to watch. (See video below.)
It took Diddo, a conceptual artist and inventor, four months to successfully extract and recover the pigment from US currency, after which the ink was re-stabilised and meted out into 5mL crimp-sealed serum vials, then packaged alongside a 24-carat gold syringe and two 24-carat gold-plated needles — all housed in a personally monogrammed and custom-built box of either mahogany or walnut.
‘The Cure For Greed’ is an iconic object that sparks an internal and social dialogue on all aspects of ‘greed’, the benefits as well as dangers of this basic and pervasive human behaviour. It’s an invitation to reexamine our assumptions and inject them with the type of energy that will ensure new and evolving perspectives.
Of course, actually injecting your veins with dollar ink is inadvisable at best and potentially lethal at worst. The piece is really something to place somewhere in your home and admire from a distance. [NotCot, ByDiddo]