Stuff from Shaun Slifer in Pitttsburgh

What better way to celebrate our national holiday than with news on Shaun Slifer’s latest project in Pittsburgh. The former Nashvillian went north after he got done at Watkins. From what I’ve always heard, there’s a healthy grassroots scene there, and as one of the old industrial capitals it’s got a good institutional base of museums and universities which should help provide spaces and programs in which interesting people can operate.

So Shaun’s latest project is a stamp and ink pad set out in a gallery, where people are encouraged to stamp their $20 bills, right next to Old Hickory’s picture, with the message “Great Heroes of Real Estate: The Indian Removal Act of 1830” and then put the bills back into circulation. It seems like there have been protest actions of writing messages on money, but this puts it on a different level, meets the money on one of its natural levels as a bearer of cultural iconography and therefore of historical interpretation. You can look at money as filled with subliminal messages, or not so subliminal messages. Thus agitation about “In God We Trust.” Or trying to decode the eye on the pyramid. Or a local activist putting his stamp on the currency.

Shaun is also involved with a website, the Pittsburgh Art Review that includes open-forum art reviews. Looks like a good thing to have in place.

So on this 4^th of July, think about ... I don't know, either where you get your history from, or where to get fireworks to shoot off in your backyard.