Imaginary Economics: Contemporary Artists and the Big World of Money
A British artist who destroys all of his belongings, a Dutch artist’s initiative that charts organization cultures, a Swiss artist who sells his right to participate in an exhibition via an online auction, an American artist who prints his own money and then succeeds in spending it . . .
This book examines the ways in which contemporary artists represent economic processes. They no longer merely express their ideas about the market or subsidy systems through the media, but analyse and offer parodies of economic mechanisms in their work. (Information from Amazon).
Artists included in the book include: Joseph Beuys, Christine Janowski, Meschac Gaba, Mark Lombardi to Santiago Sierra, Michael Landy, Maria Eichorn and others.
The book was published in 2005, however it resonates even more with today’s implications of the financial economy and economies we experience in our everyday lives. Art historian and Economist Olav Velthius provides a good starting point in understanding how artists engage with the subjects of economies and translate them into visual formats and for physical experiences.