Integration

The official end of the gold standard in 1971 is contemporaneous with the birth of conceptual art. Money and art were no longer linked to objects with intrinsic value; they became dematerialized social constructs that could exist in perpetual transformation.

Professions and practices, based on discretion, have evolved to take advantage of this mutability–think art advisement, private wealth management, shell corporations, and preview days. Money laundering is the paradigmatic example of this method. Behind closed doors, any object of belief can be transformed into a vector for cash.

In Integration, a performance will occur in which artist Maura Brewer launders money. Brewer’s funds are procured through an unspecified activity, but the process of economic transformation takes place in the open, on camera, featuring a work by Buck Ellison.