Catch this Show While you Can

Showing at the Collum Gallery in Seattle's International District (Chinatown) right now is an inspired show of Annie Bissett’s woodcuts: LOADED: the magic, the promise, the curse, and the language of money. Through October 27, 2012.

Clearly this show is the artist’s deep meditation on money. Her full-sized blocks, and smaller-sized notes, captures the extremes of feelings we harbor about money. Text and images spring surprises. With her attention to text and language she plays in the same league as Oscar Wilde, Barbara Kruger, and Jenny Holzer. Consider just 2 of these pairings:

1. The print: "Filthy Rich" in the font used for money, paired with the hand-written “dirt poor.”
2. The print: “Swimming in Cash”; paired with the handwritten “drowning in debt.”

Her currency in 4 denominations (earth, air, fire, and water, plus a single jubilee note) celebrates life in those classic domains and reminds us of All that money cannot never buy. Subversively, this also reminds us that “money” and “trade” are social creations. This means we share in the “ownership” of this invention, and thus what we do and say and think changes what money means. 

Loaded imaged indeed. Catch it while you can.