Playing Around with Money: Currency as a Contemporary Artistic Medium in Urban Africa

Abstract

In recent years, artists in African cities have shown a striking inclination to use money as a medium for artworks. Money is applied as sculpting material, it is a means of transaction in happenings and a prop in performance videos, and it has a symbolic and iconic function in paintings and installations. It is a marker of both, autonomy and dependence. While it stands for national identities, politics and economies, it also represents a global connectivity with its advantages and pitfalls. The paper presents three artists working in African cities and the diaspora who use money in a variety of ways: Meschac Gaba, Donna Kukama and Gerald Machona. After a close analysis of a selection of their work, it considers the artists' own place within an internationalizing art world and art market that perhaps is particularly welcoming to the seemingly 'universal' symbolic and economic nature of money.