Creative Accounting

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28 May – 10 July 2016

Creative Accounting, curated by Holly Williams, explores ideas around money, economic systems, perceived value and the aesthetics of currency, at a time when money is becoming increasingly abstract. Creative Accounting will trace the development of Australia’s financial and accounting systems and offer a fascinating insight into the evolution of banking and financial management practices over the last 200 years.

The exhibition will unlock a range of intriguing archival objects from the Westpac Banking Group Archives and Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS), as well as source and display often underappreciated artefacts and cultural material held in regional collections across Australia. Complemented by the archival and historical material, the exhibition will include work by contemporary Australian and international artists addressing these themes.

David Shapiro’s painstaking rendered scrolls form a kind of self-portrait through his financial transactions across a year while Kenzee Patterson’s 1 USD can be read on multiple levels – ideas of value, with the metals used in the coins that form the work being worth more than the face value of the currency they depict – or a more anthropomorphic relationship, with the installation of a ‘rod’ of coins at the anatomically correct height of the artist, suggesting a play between money and male identity. Our personal relationship with money is explored further through objects such as the convict love token. Dating back to the convict transports to Australia, these coins illustrate the value of human connection over material wealth.

The impact of trade is evident in artists such as Fiona Hall who has an extensive body of work dealing with the currency and economics. Her work Cargo Cult, engages with the history and impact of the spice trade and will be presented alongside silver Spanish 8-Reales which were crudely cast on the beaches of Mexico, on loan from MAAS. The collaborative project, the Parachutes for Ladies, tangentially engages with the history of money in Colonial Australia in a work where local amateur sportspeople replay 19th Century matches between teams determined by Currency (those born in the Colonies) vs Sterling (those born in England).

Creative Accounting is a Museums and Galleries of NSW Touring exhibition, developed in partnership with Hawkesbury Regional Gallery

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