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"New Yorker writer Lawrence Weschler chronicles the antics of J.S.G. Boggs, a young artist with a certain panache, a certain flair, a certain je ne payes pas - an artist, that is, whose consuming passion is money, or perhaps, more precisely, value. What Boggs likes to do is to draw money - actual paper notes in the denominations of standard currencies from all over the world - and then to go out and try to spend those drawings. Instead of selling his money drawings outright to interested collectors, Boggs looks for merchants who will accept his drawings in lieu of cash payment for their wares or services as part of elaborately choreographed transactions, complete with receipts and even proper change - an artistic practice that regularly lands him in trouble with treasury police around the globe." "Boggs: A Comedy of Values teases out these transactions and their sometimes dramatic legal consequences, following Boggs on a larkish, though at the same time disconcertingly profound, econo-philosophic chase. For in a madcap Socratic fashion, Boggs is raising all sorts of truly fundamental questions - what is it that we value in art, or, for that matter, in money? Indeed, how do we place a value on anything at all? And in particular, why do we, why should we, how can we place such trust in anything as confoundingly insubstantial as paper money?"--Jacket.… (more)
User reviews
Some people have remarked that Wechsler's various digressive commentaries are informative and entertaining. I find some of them germane (such as the discussion of Fernand Braudel's writings about the history & evolution of money) but much of it I personally find falls into the "trivial pursuit" category of boring miscellanea. Neither especially informative or entertaining. This might be because I've already read Braudel's work (and others) and have been previously exposed to much of the historical sidelights contained in this book about money.
What I find most interesting about this work are the actual biographical details and facts about Boggs, his art, his actions, the legal trials against him and so on. I would rather get my historical discourse about money from the other eclectic sources I've already used, but insofar as this contains interesting biographical detail, it is an entertaining read. Consider that as coming from a biography purist with low tolerance for authorial digressions and philosophies that go far afield.