November 28th, 2015 - January 3rd, 2016

Focusing on the association between art and capital, this exhibition investigated ways to talk about money through artistic practice. The exhibit included works by Nina Caporale, Lauren diCioccio, JEFF&GORDON, Sal Randolph, Jeremiah Jenkins, and Kevin White.

Local artist Nina Caporale presented a series of new work in which she has painstakenly hand beaded a series of plush IKEA objects. She has recorded the number of labor hours it took her to create these items and then asks viewers to decide for themselves how much the pieces are worth. The series calls into question the value of labor. Are the pieces worth the same small wage per hour of artistic labor that the IKEA factory workers are paid to create them?  Or are they worth the minimum wage in Ohio? Or perhaps some other artistic value is placed on them because they live as art pieces?

Lauren diCioccio and Jeremiah Jenkins, both San Francisco Bay Area artists, both use ubiquitous items of day-to-day life to draw attention to and further derive meaning from these objects.  DiCioccio’s pieces in this show focus on the monotonous quality of currency, heightening these objects through hand embroidery in a way that is both playful and intimate. Jenkins has several works in the show that use actual modes of currency (credit cards and check books) to create altogether different items to create surprising connections and messages regarding the financial system.

New York based artist Sal Randolph is more interested in the social interactions that come when money is involved. Her work, Free Money, which will be featured in the exhibition, calls into question the etiquette surrounding “free” money and uses a social practice format to explore this issue.

JEFF&GORDON and Kevin White both have works in the show that examine artistic labor as work. JEFF&GORDON, an artist duo from Los Angeles, created an 8 hour film which condenses their full workday as artists into a typical 8 hour work day. Their “workday”, which includes art making, administrative duties, teaching, and other jobs overtakes their entire day, from the time they wake up until the time they go to bed. This film reflects on what it means to be an artist and how the standard 8 hour work day that labor unions fought for does not apply to the life of a working artist.

Kevin White, a local Cincinnati artist, typically works a standard work day at his studio at Visionaries and Voices. He work evolves and changes daily as his creations take over and alter the immediate environment that surrounds him in a riot of color and pattern. During the course of the exhibition, White will be using a portion of the Wave Pool gallery as his studio space. The space will evolve and change throughout the course of the exhibition and his laborious artistic practice will become part of the exhibition, epitomizing the avowal that art is work.

The exhibition opened on November 28th at Wave Pool from 7-10pm and remained on view until January 3rd, 2016.