RESUME :: BIOGRAPHY

Epicks, May 9, 2002
Ray Beldner: Counterfeit: Right on the Money

By Alison Bing

For a Song, 2000, (after Robert Motherwell's Elegy for the Spanish Republic, 1958), sewn dollar bills, 38" x 48.5"

Ray Beldner's "Counterfeit" is the real deal: art that engages the mind, appeals to the eye and -- depending on your relationship to money -- may even make your palms itch. Many conceptual "think pieces" keep their audience at a critical remove, but Beldner's re-creations of famous artworks made entirely in $1 bills invite inspection with their minute folds and precise stitching. By sewing together dollars to create his tributes, Beldner prompts us to reconsider the value we assign to painting and sculpture over time-intensive "women's work" like embroidery, lace-making or knitting. With works like "Fifteen Minutes of Money (v. 1) (after Andy Warhol's '$(4)', 1982)" and "Trickle Down Composition (after Jackson Pollock's 'No. 32,' 1950)," Beldner cleverly alludes to the art-world machinery that mints new art stars each decade like so many commemorative quarters. As Beldner implies with "Counterfeit," artists like Warhol and Pollock weren't made of money; they were brought into common currency by galleries, collectors and museums that had a vested interest in them. In "Shopping Spree (after Barbara Kruger's 'I Shop Therefore I Am,' 1987)," Beldner redirects Kruger's commentary on consumerism toward the acquisitive nature of the collectors who made Kruger's work a highly sought-after commodity in the 1980s. This star system rewarded Kruger's artistic innovation, but it also has artists clutching onto the coattails of successful colleagues, hoping to be greeted as the next Kruger -- or at least be rescued from destitution by association. Market forces are wantonly capricious, as Beldner reminds us in "Capital Flight (after Constantin Brancusi's 'Bird in Space,' 1927)," a phallic ode to the coitus interruptus of the dot-com boom. Yet artists, like the rest of us, continually hope that they'll be the ones to hit the jackpot. Beldner's "Benign Corporate Dictatorship (after Pablo Picasso's 'Study for Guernica,' 1937)" offers an astute analogy for our modern-day plight: The subtle, seductive tyranny of the marketplace is much harder to locate and resist than the outright political tyranny faced by Picasso and his Spanish compatriots. But Beldner's work digs beneath our compulsion to cash in and taps into another equally elemental urge: The drive to create something truly worthy, not just of financial reward but of homage. Time is money, and Beldner has sacrificed untold hours to create his painstakingly crafted tributes. Beldner's evident care gives his critique of our coldly calculating culture a deeper resonance; here is an artist who is putting his money where his mouth is, and asking us to reexamine our priorities. -- Alison Bing, special to SF Gate

Catharine Clark Gallery, 49 Geary St., 2nd floor, SF; Tue-Fri 10:30 am-5:30 pm and Sat 11 am-5:30 pm; free; (415) 399-1439.