Banknotes painted by artists regain value in Argentina

The Argentine jaguar lies inert at the feet of its hunter, George Washington. The first president of USA He rests one of his arms on the animal’s body and with the other he holds the shotgun with which he took its life.

The scene was recreated by the Argentine artist Sergio Díaz on a 500 peso bill that bears the image of the feline that lives in northern Argentina and another one dollar bill where the rest of the body was added to the face of the American president.

The two paper currencies, which are united as if they were a single painting, illustrate the power of the US currency over the Argentine peso, which has collapsed in the midst of an unstoppable overheating of prices that has led to inflation soaring in August. to 12.4% —the highest monthly rate since February 1991—, while the interannual rate reached 124.4%, one of the highest in the world.

Díaz indicated that he wanted to highlight “the superiority” of Washington over his downed prey.

The work remembers the moment when the dollar was close to 500 pesos in the parallel exchange market, where Argentines go due to the restrictions on the acquisition of foreign currency imposed by the government.

That was a few months ago and the devaluation has only deepened in the heat of inflation: today it takes 730 pesos to buy a dollar in the informal market.

Díaz and other Argentine artists have given a creative purpose to increasingly useless banknotes, which in the last year have lost around 60% of their value.

These cartoonists highlight the constant loss of purchasing power of the peso due to inflation, revaluing with their strokes the devalued paper money that they sell at a value much higher than what it represents.

The artists, from the Money Art movement, post on Instagram their works made with moderately expensive instruments – such as brushes and acrylics – on bills of 10, 20, 100 or 1,000 pesos that the Argentine public acquires at a value that ranges between 40,000 and 70,000 pesos and that reach up to US$300 abroad.

It is an achievement for a currency that is increasingly less valued in Argentina and despised in neighboring countries. Supporters of Brazilian soccer clubs have torn up peso-denominated bills and flung them from the stands of stadiums to mock their Argentine rivals. And in Paraguay the exchange houses began to reject them.

The painters who intervene in the devalued role claim it with their art that garners admirers on the networks and that they exhibit outside and inside the country.

Díaz will exhibit the piece in which President Washington is subduing his Argentine prisoner along with others in the series “The art of devaluation” in an exhibition that will take place in November in Salta, his hometown in northern Argentina.

“There is some transgression, vandalization… but my idea is to go further and transform the banknotes while talking about the problem of inflation, which affects us all,” Diaz explained.

In 2017, the artist began painting the two-peso bills that were about to go out of circulation. He had the idea that by doing so “they were going to have another value and they were going to be saved from disappearing” because they would end up in the hands of third parties.

The artist has painted on paper money the portraits of the Argentine soccer stars Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, that of the terrifying clown Pennywise —from the movie “Item”— and those of the characters from the Harry Potter films.

One of Díaz’s most praised creations on social networks is the one that alludes to the film’s advertisement “Jaws” of 1975 —which in the Hispanic market was called “Shark”—. The head of the shark emerges from a one-dollar bill with its jaws open, about to devour the woman who is swimming in a blue ocean made up of two 200-peso bills.

Cristian English, a member of the same group of artists, began intervening in banknotes three years ago when during the quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic he found it difficult to obtain frames and used paper money as a canvas. “I had them for free, because (people) gave me five-peso bills that were no longer worth anything.”

Back then inflation was not so rampant. But more than three months ago, in the midst of the permanent rise in prices that devours purchasing power, the government had to issue the 2,000 peso bill (less than US$3) with which it honored the renowned Argentine doctors Cecilia Grierson. and Ramón Castillo.

English then considered reproducing with the faces of both “a lot of duets”, among them, that of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, stars of The Beatles.

Finally, he decided to capture the couple from an old Argentine television advertisement who boasted of having rekindled their relationship with the use of a pill that triggered sexual desire.

The most celebrated phrase in that advertisement was “not again, enough”with which the woman laughingly referred to her husband’s insatiable desires due to the consumption of the product.

It is an expression that for English can well be applied to the need to stop the unstoppable depreciation of the peso and the monetary issue. “Enough… They take out a 2,000 bill that is worth nothing. It is printing for the sake of printing.”

His artistic intervention, which he shared with the labels “portrait”, “humor”, “inflation”was widely celebrated on Instagram, although it triggered some criticism, such as the one who stated that Argentines do not even respect banknotes.

The response of a follower of English to the author of said question was: “Complain to the BCRA (Central Bank of the Argentine Republic), which transformed our currency into toilet paper for your butt.”

English has commissions from admirers in Paraguay and Chile, who have asked him to paint the Argentine rocker Charly García on the five-peso bill and Diego Maradona on the 10, the number that the famous national team forward wore on his shirt.

The artist will continue using paper money as a support because it is more economical than the traditional stretcher: a 2,000 peso bill is barely enough to buy the smallest of the canvases.

The problem is the poor quality of that bill – the one with the highest denomination. “I can assure you that it is much weaker; one of them began to fall apart when I painted it… it gives the impression that it is temporary.”

Source: AP