exhibition
Mustapha Akrim & Ryts Monet
06/05 – 07/07/2023
curated by Aline Lenzhofer
Opening: Thursday, May 05, 2023 at 6 pm
with a muscial performance by Chor 129
Venue: philomena+ project room, Heinestraße 40, 1020 Vienna
Workshops A Currency for Viktor-Adler-Markt:
Saturday, 29/04/2023, 10 am – 6 pm
Saturday, 13/05/2023, 2 – 6 pm
Please register at info@philomena.plus
Venue: Stand 129, Viktor-Adler-Markt 129, 1100 Vienna
in cooperation with Salam Orient and Stand 129
Euro, Dirham, Manat, Schilling or Franc: not only are they means of payment, but with their images and symbols they also narrate stories about a state or a confederation of states, construct identities and point to political realities.
The exhibition “Markt-Marie” explores the design of banknotes and raises questions about representation, power relations and the interplay between politics and economics. In a participatory wall piece, Mustapha Akrim invites visitors to act like archaeologists by excavating facets of the contemporary history of money through the act of scraping – from the representation of the working class on the Moroccan dirham to the neo-colonial currency of the franc introduced in the Central African region.
In a multimedia installation, Ryts Monet examines the design of the Euro banknotes, placing the focus on the figure of Europa portrayed in the watermark and silver thread of all Euro paper money. The portrait on the Euros is freely taken from a vase of 360 B.C., found in Taranto, which illustrates Europa with the bull. According to Greek mythology the phoenician princess of Europa was taken from what is now Lebanon and part of Syria to Crete by Zeus in the guise of a bull. In his analysis he draws a connection of this scene to the stock exchange buildings around the world and opens up questions on the historical and symbolic meaning of represented classical figures and architecture on banknotes.