A Brief History of Money and Religion

JSG Boggs, 1997, $10 Funback. He makes hand drawn copies of engraved bills.

These bills are difficult to distinguish from the real thing. Similiar to Warhol, Boggs is interested in "artistic alchemy:" making paper and ink have the value of money without being actual money.[35]

At this level, Boggs' art would appear to simply be a form of barter, the means of exchange that predates money: Boggs gives someone a drawing in exchange for something he considers more valuable, such as a cup of coffee.

What makes Boggs' work particularly contemporary and appropriate to this godless age of commerce and electronic money is that the transaction is the art. This is Boggs' art: he draws a dollar bill and has the waiter agree to accept the drawing in exchange for a cup of coffee. Boggs receives the proper change and goes home. From there he calls a collector or a dealer and gives them enough information to find the representation of money that he used as actual money. Therefore, the transaction itself is what makes this representation of money have greater value than whatever he bought with it. The drawing is simply a physical remnant of the transaction.[36] In the electronic age, both art and money are conceptual and intangible.