The US dollar as currency not only represents our successes and failures, but has become a symbol of so-called sacrifice as reported in the following article by Scott Mayerowitz for ABC News. I thought the “Dollar Bill” Warhol series are very appropriate again!
ABC News: The Other Side of the $1 Salary
“The chief executives of the big three American automakers might give up most of their salary if they end up getting assistance from the federal government. The $1 salaries are meant to be a symbol to shareholders, employees and taxpayers that the bosses are doing everything possible to fix their companies’ problems. But the CEOs of GM, Chrysler and Ford are still likely to earn millions.” Read the article…
Warhol began to paint images of dollar bills in the early 1960s, producing canvases arrayed with endless grids of bank notes. Returning to the subject in the 1980s, he isolated the dollar sign and replicated that symbol in paintings and prints interpreted in a sketchy, improvisational style. Warhol’s Dollar Signs are direct and wry reminders that, by the 80s, paintings had themselves become consumer items and metaphors for money, a phenomenon that he readily accepted. “I like money on the wall,” he said. “Say you were going to buy a $200,000 painting. I think you should take that money, tie it up, and hang it on the wall. Then when someone visited you, the first thing they would see is the money on the wall.”
