JAPANESE MONEY ARTIST KATSUHIKO AKASEGAWA

 

Among them was a 43-year-old artist named Katsuhiko Akasegawa, known in the art world as Genpei. Besides being a Giants fan, Akasegawa was one of the brightest avant-garde figures in postwar Japanese art. His most famous work was a series of 1,000-yen banknotes, which he did not consider as counterfeit currency but as a mock-up of banknotes, just as a model of an airplane is not an airplane. Despite this explanation, the authorities ended up taking him to court.

During the trial, Genpei insisted that the banknotes were art, turning his appearance in court into a performance in which he and other contemporary artists reflected on the meaning of art. In the end, and after several appeals, the Supreme Court of Japan gave Akasegawa a suspended three-month sentence in 1970; in other words, he did not go to jail and, in fact, his banknote-prints soared in popularity to the point that they are currently exhibited at the MoMA in New York.

 

To read the complete article, see:
The true history of architectural aberrations (https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-04-13/the-true-history-of-architectural-aberrations.html)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web