Image Co & Co.

Dalhousie Art Gallery
Caustic Assets
October 22 to November 29, 2009

Caustic Assets

The best things in life are free
But you can give them to the birds and bees
I want money, that’s what I want, that’s what I want, that’s what I want

I want money
I want lots of money
In fact I want so much money
Give me your money
Just give me money

Is that what we all want? What we all got? What did we get? In 1959 Motown’s Barrett Strong belted out his desire for ‘Money’; in 1979 post-punk band The Flying Lizards demanded it in their cover version of ‘Money’. Here we are thirty years later, suffering yet another economic crisis. This one global. The money’s run out. So what have we bought? What assets did we accrue? Just how far have we overextended ourselves?

Ask yourself who really suffers and at what price. I’d wager we all do, some in more dramatic and escalated levels of misery and pain then others. Of course I’d be wagering money I didn’t have, that I’d borrowed and therefore exacerbate the problem by placing myself in a position of power and money, should my wager be successful. Instead I’d hazard a guess that the people with the least access to power tend to suffer more. In ‘Radical Simplicity’, Jim Merkel states that in a global economy money equals power, it gives one access to goods, services, security, and healthcare. So if money can buy such influence wouldn’t the fundamental ideal of democracy, that all voices have equal value and effect, then becomes an unachievable myth?

In the summer of 2007 we witnessed a global financial crisis that provoked a hefty injection of capital into financial markets by the United States Federal Reserve, Bank of England and the European Central Bank. By September 2008, the crisis deepened as stock markets worldwide crashed. Prior to the summer of 2007, consumers in America and Britain were living way beyond their means, borrowing large sums of money to fund ever increasing spending habits. We became consumer junkies at a larger-than-Texas ‘all you can eat’ smorgasbord, eating our way to gargantuan, preposterous credit proportions. The buffet finally ran out, the bill arrived, time to pay-up. We crashed.

The video selections in Caustic Assets comment on the tragic repercussions we are left to manage after our asset hungry gluttony has abated. Browsing the media, either on television, on-line, or in the press, given that you may actually own a television, computer or be able to buy the paper, indicates widespread and increasing deterioration of social, cultural, democratic and environmental frameworks of capitalist market societies. What we are witnessing now is the payback of debts in the form of unemployment, status inequality, exploitation, homelessness, hunger, riots, and ecological disruption. It is uncanny how our certitude in what constitutes vitally essential needs; for example our affinity for anything over-size whether it be houses, closets, cars, televisions, or food portions, can lead to substantial situations of deprivation and distress to ourselves, our society, and the greater global community.

Jim Merkel. Radical Simplicity: Small footprints on a finite earth. 2003.