Artists use cash as the raw material for their artwork. Karina Monaca has a collection of banknotes inspired by Bitcoin, Caracas and renowned paintings.
Graduate Architect and artist Karina Monaca heard of Bitcoin through a friend, who is immersed in the world of cryptocurrencies. In this way, she became interested in the cryptocurrency created by Satoshi Nakamoto, considering that it was a project unlike any other that she had ever heard before.
Karina designs banknote paintings based on irony, considering that it is “a mixture of things that are similar but different at the same time.” The bolivar is worthless paper money, whilst Bitcoin is digital money that is worth a lot and whose price is revalued. The two-way game hooked her and she has made two other banknotes of masked characters with Bitcoin to express the privacy that this cryptocurrency grants to its users.
The artist works to order producing a cypherpunk bolivar inspired by the group of bitcoiners @satoshienvzla. Even though she trades the banknotes, she also has a private collection of paintings designed by her.
A Voice in Protest
Karina Monaca has been enthusiastic about her art alluding to Bitcoin, but she has been doing it for a short time, taking into account that the artist has been painting banknotes since 2015. The idea started due to the frustration that Karina felt with the hyperinflation in the country, which had rendered the lowest denomination banknote at that time worthless.
In this way, Karina prevents banknotes from ending up in the trash and a person has the opportunity to take home a rare object that is the product of a difficult economic, political and social situation. Her protest remains on her banknote canvas, with which she immigrated to Buenos Aires three years ago.
Not only Bitcoin or the famous paintings by accomplished artists are part of Karina’s gallery, but also paintings about the city of Caracas and its fauna. Macaws, Altamira Square, and the busy Ávila are part of her designs, as the memory of a society that is still seeking ways to recover its economy and safeguard the value of money.
This concern also mobilizes artists such as @Sandelosmuertos, @Recortamueve and the artisans stationed on the borders of Colombia and Venezuela, trading wallets and birds made from discontinued banknotes. It is people discontented with their currency, looking for a way to reinvent themselves and who rely on the US dollar, gold or Bitcoin to stay afloat.
Bitcoin Sneaks into Art
Karina Monaca considers banknotes and Bitcoin two materials that will remain in her creations. Above all, she will continue painting on banknotes, since she conceives them as part of her plastic language. When she started doing this, it was a crime (and still is), but at that time people could pay for things with their banknotes.
Likewise, she considers that Bitcoin has a lot of potential in the artistic world and people are just beginning to see this trend. Artists are interested in producing artwork that deals with privacy, decentralization and the power that this cryptocurrency has given to its users. In this sense, she notes that it is something that people want to consume.
Karina is not the only one who makes art allusive to Bitcoin with Venezuelan banknotes. Jon Tompkins, Founder of Atomica Mutual, produced a gigantic picture with out-of-circulation bolivars that form the Bitcoin symbol. Through her Twitter account, she stated that the Venezuelan currency was relegated to artistic use since it had lost its economic value.
By Alexander Salazar
