Tuesday, with the guidance of Shalini Le Gall, we toured a number of installations aimed at (or tangent to) the Origins theme at the Colby College Museum of Art. The majority of the work we discussed was displayed in the Davis Curricular Gallery, which (aside from a few bird-centric pieces) has been furnished to serve this year’s humanities theme. Shalini encouraged the group to meander about and eventually select a piece or two to share a few thoughts on. Among the works in Davis gallery were a handful of acrylic paintings, some photography (of varying dimensions), and a number of works composed of less common media, such as artistically amended pages from books and works including paper money.

One piece particularly stole my attention: a giant steel frame (roughly 4’x6’) covered in rows of carefully arced tickets of colored paper. While the piece as a whole was pretty hard to miss, with its steel construction and hundreds of colorful paper slips, the details could have slipped by you if you weren’t careful. Each row had been assembled with different paper currency. I’m still not entirely sure of it, but most currencies on the piece appeared obsolete, although in pristine condition. The antique Polish Złoty gave it away on first encounter, followed by spottings of a number of now defunct regimes.

The name of this rather grand, bright, and eclectic piece was “Wall of Lamentation XIII”.

[On a side note, the piece had been gifted to Colby College by the artist, Santiago Montoya. I hope he was able to sell the previous twelve walls of lamentation… They cant have been cheap to make.]

The name is pretty much where I stop agreeing with Montoya on his philosophy surrounding the piece. According to Shalini, Montoya says his recent work is inspired the increasing disuse of cash in modern society. He disapproves of the abstraction of legal tender and is upset by the loss of cultural heritage which comes with cashlessness.

I see the point Montoya attempts to make. But to me, his ‘motivation’ seems almost like an afterthought to an overwhelmingly aesthetically pleasing piece. Let’s be real, this thing is beautiful. A solid stainless steel block filled with bills in mint condition (ha). I’m sure he knew this thing was going to look good when he dreamt it up (for the 13th time). If that was his intent, let that be known. I don’t think there’s any shame in that.

However, with a title so powerful and a selection of beautifully illustrated currency from regimes not limited to the DPRK, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, and CCCP, I feel that Montoya misses out on a massive opportunity to make a statement on how centralized currency is a leash on the public for as long as it is functional. Centralized currency and artificially fabricated value leave the fate of a nation’s people at the fingertips of those who control the source. Additionally, paper money, with its ornate designs depicting either figures or objects of cultural heritage, is essentially propaganda (for better or for worse). The Wall of Lamentation deserves to be about the suffering caused by the bills it displays. Few people lament over a slimmer wallet and using plastic over paper. Billions have suffered at the hands of regimes starving their citizens of nourishment, education, healthcare, free agency, and freedom of speech.