Join us for free wine, risky money making and magical money laundering at the opening of Currency, the first show of the COMMERCE theme year. Currency is an exhibition of art, artifacts and books examining the representation of value and its relation to social consensus. The exhibition includes displays of alternative currencies, artist-made currencies and art objects made from currency. We will also examine art’s role as a form of currency.

For Saturday’s opening, and at intervals throughout the show, there will also be a money-making demonstration by Hackett and Bronwen Densmore who will operate The Coin Press, a guillotine-like, human-powered contraption. You will be able to witness this two-person minting outfit press REAL and VALUABLE coins using copper, brass and a machine that was dreamed up and assembled on the banks of the Gowanus using objects that can best be described as LARGE, RUSTY, and DANGEROUS.

       Dan Tague, Trust No One

The reception will also include the ceremonial witches Arielle Avenia and Violette Olympia, engaged for the evening to ritually cleanse your money of bad energy. Do not miss this opportunity to improve your life at this while-you-wait money laundering service. 

Currency participants include: Honey Brown, Makale Faber-Cullen, Dadara, Hackett and Bronwen Densmore, Rob Johnson, Hai Knafo, Poneros, Sal Randolph, Duke Riley, Jason Sinopoli, Swoon, Dan Tague, Mark Wagner and Caroline Woolard.

Presented as part of our yearlong exploration of the theme MIGRATION at Proteus Gowanus, and in conjunction with Portland State University’s Art and Social Practice MFA Lecture Series, join us for a migratory conversation with Duke Riley, an artist whose work addresses the prospect of residual but forgotten unclaimed frontiers.

Duke Riley’s wide-ranging practice examines the crossings of hidden borderlands, the liminal zone where land meets sea, and the struggle of marginalized peoples in the grand scheme of urban space. He has recreated a Revolutionary War submarine, staged a Roman sea battle in a reflecting pool in Queens, and tracked down the descendants of a self-appointed king of an island in the middle of the Delaware River. Duke is also a practicing tattoo artist at East River Tattoo.

Duke Riley has had solo shows at the Magnan Metz Gallery; Cleveland MOCA; the Philadelphia Historical Society; the Queens Museum of Art. He is a recipient of a Pollack-Krasner Foundation grant and an Art Matters grant. In 2009, he created the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Havana, Cuba during the Havana Bienial. Riley’s work has been commissioned by the MTA Subway Station and Art for Transit.