The Contemporary Art Modern Project presents Money Talks, a solo online exhibition featuring works from Chinese painter Su Yu. His unique blend of classical scenery, academic technique, and surreal imagery of contemporary icons and currency invites the audience to reflect on how the complex relationship between the artist, their art, and money has evolved over time.
The iconographical likeness of Benjamin Franklin— the face of the American hundred-dollar bill— appears in a large portion of Su Yu’s work, almost unwittingly leading you into a contemporary version of a game of Where’s Waldo. Figureheads from different currencies, royalty, and toys also make their appearances, stamped over posed bodies in a playful assortment of colorful bobble-heads, almost serene. Bright colors result in playful visuals, but it is also a sardonic reminder of the way the artist is inextricably at the mercy of money— the very thing which provides the basis of survival in a world that uses currency as the foundation of a functioning society. Su Yu is quoted saying, “I paint dollars, money itself is a symbol of human civilization. It's that everyone has to deal with money. These express real emotions in the form of traditional paintings and modern and contemporary collages… Art has a price. Everything in this world has a price.”
By painting elements of the surreal into traditional compositions, Su Yu also transforms the context of the works that inspired him into the present. One such example of this is The Little Princess in the Bank (2023), which is inspired by Diego Velazquez’s Las Meninas (1656). One of the figures that appear in the original work is that of Velazquez himself, gazing out towards the viewer and poised mid-brushstroke. The artist stares out at us from where he is painting, a visible recognition of the self and of the viewer amidst the wealth and opulence that he has been tasked to capture. In Foucault’s analysis of Las Meninas, he states, “From the eyes of the painter to what he is observing there runs a compelling line that we, the onlookers, have no power of evading: it runs through the real picture and emerges from its surface to join the place from which we see the painter observing us; this dotted line reaches out to us ineluctably, and links us to the representation of the picture.”
In The Little Princess in the Bank, fluorescent bubble-gum pink saturates the canvas to form the rosy interior of a bank, and human shapes with the recognizable faces of figures from modernity surround a reproduction of the princess Margarita, blurring the boundaries between past and present, an invitation to reconsider our perception of value and worth. Franklin’s face is painted twice, once blended into the background, the same shade of pink as the bank, and another painted where Velazquez’s eyes originally gazed out at the viewer. The expression on both remains the same despite the difference in color palette: passive and unblinking, like the billions of eyes that observe us from the crumpled faces on our loose bills and change. This repetition of Franklin's visage emphasizes the relentless scrutiny imposed by money, where one is left to grapple with the significance behind the dollar taking on the position of painter—of maker. Su Yu's reinterpretation of Velazquez's masterpiece prompts us to interrogate our own complicity in a system where art, like everything else, has a price.
Money Talks challenges us to confront the uncomfortable truths lurking beneath the surface of our monetary-driven world, and challenges viewers to confront the pervasive influence of wealth and consumerism in today's society. As we navigate through Su Yu’s surreal scenes filled with wealth and allusion, we are compelled to reassess our own values and priorities in an age where it seems as though money talks louder than ever.
Curation and statement by Amayah Novela
