Questão de Língua Inglesa

2 Money for Art’s Sake

J. S. G. Boggs is a young artist with a certain flair and panache. What he likes to do, for example, is to invite you out to eat at an expensive restaurant, run up a bill of, say, eighty-seven dollars, and then, while sipping coffee after dessert, reach into his satchel and pull out a drawing he’s already been working on for several hours before the meal. The drawing, on a small sheet of high-quality paper, might consist, in this instance, of a virtually perfect rendition of the face-side on one-hundreddollar bill. He then pulls out a couple of precision pens from his satchel – one green ink, the other black – and proceeds to apply the finishing touches to his drawing. This activity invariably causes a stir. Guests at neighbouring tables crane their necks. Passing waiters stop to gawk. The head waiter eventually drifts over, stares for a while, and then praises the young man on the excellence of his art. ’That’s good’, says Boggs. ‘I’m glad you like this drawing because I intend to use it as payment for our meal’. At this point, a vertiginous chill descends upon the room – or, more precisely, upon the head waiter. He blanches. You can see his mind reeling as he begins to plot strategy. Should he call the police? How is he going to avoid a scene? But Boggs almost immediately re– establishes a measure of equilibrium by reaching into his satchel, pulling out a real hundred-dollar bill – indeed, the model of the very drawing he’s just completed – and saying, ‘Of course, if you want, you can take this ordinary hundred0dollar bill instead’. Colour is already returning to the head waiter’s face. ‘But as you can see’, Boggs continues, ‘I’m an artist, and I drew this. It took me many hours to do it. And it is certainly worth something…. So you have to make up your mind whether you think this piece of art is worth more or less than this standard one-hundred-dollar bill. It’s entirely up to you’. As a conceptual artist, Boggs feels a work isn’t complete until he has spent one of his bills; not only spent it, in fact, but often also received change – in real currency – and a receipt. A ‘successful transaction’, as he explains, is one that makes people think about such concepts and value and beauty and leads them to their own conclusions, independent of any establishment – whether governmental or cultural. But mightn’t his money still be counterfeit? Boggs always makes impish changes on his bills – signing his own name instead of the Secretary of the Treasury’s, for instance, or substituting the faces of celebrated American women (a current project) for the men gracing US currency. Governments, however, don’t take kindly to this. Boggs has been prosecuted, unsuccessfully, for counterfeiting in both England and Australia; the Australian government was even required to pay him more than $20.000 in damages. In the U.S., things have gone less well. In 1990, just before a major exhibition of his work opened, Boggs became embroiled with the U.S. secret service. Its agents moved to prevent publication of the show’s catalogue as it was then conceived, with actual-size, full-colour reproductions of Boggs drawings. In the end, the catalogue, ‘J. S. G. Boggs Smart Money (Hard Currency)’, was printed using enlarged images. This was just the beginning for Boggs: when ‘Smart Money’ moved on to another gallery, Secret Service agents threatened to confiscate everything but had no search warrant. In December 1992, Boggs was preparing to embark on ‘Project Pittsburgh’ and spent a million dollars ‘worth’ of a new series of drawings. The Secret Service raided his studio and office at Carnegie Mellon University, where he was a visiting lecturer in Art and Ethics. They confiscated 1.300 items. They did not, however, arrest Boggs, who suit to regain his material is currently on appeal. According to Kent Yalowitz, the lawyer who has taken Boggs’ case on, ‘The government has never tried to explain to the courts why they think he’s breaking the law or why they have a right to seize his work.’ Yalowitz points out that, unlike counterfeiters, Boggs has never tried to defraud anyone with his notes, nor has anyone ever complained of fraud in any of Boggs’ transactions. Yalowitz said he’s offered the government a compromise solution: ‘So long as no one complains of being defrauded by Boggs or anyone else using one of his drawings, the government should not interfere with his work.’ ‘What’s driving them so crazy?’ Boggs asks for his part. ‘It must be the way these bills of mine subvert the whole system, calling into question the very credibility of the country’s entire currency.’ Boggs commissioned Thomas Hopschen, the master engraver whose portraits adorn the new denominations of American currency, to make a steel-engraved portrait. This portrait – of Boggs – now adorns a series of $100.000 bills, which the artist foresees using to pay his legal expenses. Sally Burgess / Richard Acklam - Longman