An introduction to “Money after Money | Credit Game 2013”

Masu Hiroshi Masuyama (Executive Producer/ MaM)

Ever wonder why a single painting can fetch prices in the tens, or hundreds of millions of dollars? Microeconomics would tell us that this was the equilibrium point, where supply met demand. One might want to add that this is also a question of belief; that once an object or service reaches a price (however exorbitant the number involved may seem to the average person in the case of fine art) which the purchaser believes is the best they can get then the exchange is initiated.

What about bank notes? Printed money is so common in our lives that we rarely even consider the fact that bank notes are simply ink on paper, just as a painting might be described as simply paint on canvas. My JPY10,000 bank note will not get me wine and cheese in Paris, unless some second party enters to confirm that it is indeed “worth” 80 euros. People will only see the ink and paper.

The mechanisms of “trust,” the basic mechanisms of paintings bought and sold, whatever monetary system you find yourself in, are more or less the same. Art and money have a utility which is fundamentally different from that of a car or a smart phone.

“Money afer Money: Credit Game 2013” is an art exhibition based on this premise. And the greater the utility this exhibition has for opening up the visitors awareness of the strangeness, the convenience, and the limits of financial instruments through the participating artists’ creativity, the greater the “happiness index” for I who conceived of the exhibition.
（translated by David d’heilly）

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