Mark Wagner (born 1976) is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

artist best known for meticulous

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

s made of United States banknotes, such as the portrait of Federal Reserve Bank Chairman

Ben Bernanke Ben Shalom Bernanke ( ; born December 13, 1953) is an American economist who served as the 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. After leaving the Fed, he was appointed a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. Durin ...

, composed exclusively of one-dollar bills, in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution's

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: *National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra *National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...

. He is co-founder of The Booklyn Artist Alliance and has published over twenty artists’ books with Bird Brain Press and X-ing Books.

Currency collage

Since 1999, Wagner has been using US banknotes to create portraits, abstractions, allegories, still lifes, and sculptures ranging in size from 2x3 inch smiling and frowning parodies of

Gilbert Stuart Gilbert Charles Stuart ( Stewart; December 3, 1755 – July 9, 1828) was an American painter from Rhode Island Colony who is widely considered one of America's foremost portraitists. His best-known work is an unfinished portrait of George Washi ...

’s portrait of George Washington on the dollar, to the 17x3 feet ''Liberty'', a 2009 depiction of the

Statue of Liberty The Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World''; French: ''La Liberté éclairant le monde'') is a List of colossal sculpture in situ, colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the U ...

using slices from over 1000 dollar bills. Lisa Dennison, Chief Curator of the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

in New York City commends Wagner's “witty and intricately detailed” work and situates his art in the longstanding tradition of artists like Ed Ruscha who adapt pre-existing resources to create uniquely engaging works of art. Detractors say the work can lean towards the gimmicky.

Collections

Bibliothèque nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...

, Paris *

Boston Public Library The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also the Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse'') of the Commonweal ...

, Boston, MA * Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY * Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC * Getty Center for the History of Art and Humanities, Los Angeles, CA * Library of Congress, Washington, DC * Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC * Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN * Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), NYC *

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

, NYC * Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI * San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA * Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC *

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, Palo Alto, CA * Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN * Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC

Exhibitions

Wagner has had a number of solo exhibitions and participated in many group exhibitions. *Pavel Zoubok Gallery, NYC (2013, 2011, 2008) - solo exhibitions *Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing, China (2012) *National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (2011) *Ronald Feldman Fine Art, NYC (2010) *Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (2009) *Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (2009) *FLAG Art Foundation, NYC (2008) *Getty Center for the History of Art and Humanities, Los Angeles, CA (2005) *Renaissance Society / University of Chicago, IL (2004) *Parsons School of Design, NYC (2003) - solo exhibition *Yale University, New Haven, CT (2002) *Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY (2000) *Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC (2000)

Publication

*Pacific Standard Magazine, "The King of Cash," cover image, Nov., 2013 *WSJ Money Magazine, "A Yen for Art,” Mar. 9, 2013 *Harvard Business Review Russia, cover image and artwork, United Press, 2012 *The Baffler, No 19, artwork, MIT Press, Mar. 2012 *New York State lottery advertising campaign, “Money Multiplier,” Nov. 2012 *Wall Street Journal, "Mark Wagner: Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" Lance Esplund, Aug. 6, 2011 *Huffington Post, "The New Moneyed Art" Adrian Brune, Aug. 4, 2011 *"Paper Promises," novel by Philip Coggan, cover image, Penguin UK, 2011 *Hyperallergic, "The Phantoms of Liberty" Howard Hurst, Jul. 13, 2011 *Newsweek, cover image, "The Capitalist Manifesto," Fareed Zakaria, Jun. 22, 2009 *Harpers Magazine, "Infinite Debt," Thomas Geoghegan, Apr. 2009 *Morning News, "Million Dollar Babies," Nicole Pasulka, Apr. 6, 2009 *New York Times, "Collages Go to College, And Behave Accordingly,” Benj. Genocchio, Dec. 16, 2007 *The New York Times, "Money Changes Everything,” Ken Johnson, Jul. 14, 2006 *Chicago Reader, "Well-Worn Text," Nov. 29, 1996

Other coverage

*http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/artist-mark-wagner-dollar-bills-million-dollar-message-article-1.1468470 *http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adrian-margaret-brune/the-new-moneyed-art_b_918483.html? *http://hyperallergic.com/29363/the-phantoms-of-liberty/ *http://paradigmmagazine.com/2011/12/12/paradigm-magazine-mark-wagner-interview/ *http://blog.library.si.edu/2012/07/concealed-in-the-rising-smoke/#.UqSRJiecxBk *http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3ABird+Brain+Press.&qt=hot_author *http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/08/mark-wagner-currency/

References

External links

*http://artsy.net/artist/mark-wagner
Artists website
*. A P.F. Pictures short of the artist at work. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wagner, Mark 1976 births Living people University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni American artists Banknotes of the United States Collage artists