Monopoly with Real Money, 2009

IAIN BAXTER& - Windsor, Canada

Performance Art, Multimedia Installation

Money becomes a conceptual and tactile medium as Toronto celebrities play the iconic real estate board game throughout the night at the TSX. This timely restaging of the artist's 1973 event draws an eerie connection between the 1970s era-defining recession and today's market meltdown. Monopoly, patented during the Great Depression, gains new relevance with every boom-and-bust cycle. Does it provide an escape from the grim reality of stock-market crashes and factory layoffs, or offer a training ground for the next generation of would-be entrepreneurs? See how unlikely combinations of artists, musicians, journalists, authors, media personalities, and (yes!) financiers and developers vie for prize properties in an uncertain investment climate -- all played in cold, hard cash. 

The work of IAIN BAXTER& has consistently questioned the role of art as commodity and as a medium for cultural commentary. He was the first artist to adopt a corporate persona when, in 1966, he formed the N.E. Thing Company. His work has been widely exhibited and collected in institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the F.R.A.C. Art Museum, the Gemeentemusem, and the National Gallery of Canada.

Suitable for all ages