Bank Job at Perlman Teaching Museum

Bank Job reflects on the conceptual, material, ideological, and political contours of currency and exchange. The exhibition is an art history lesson in conceptual art through the lens of currency and its relationship to forgery, trickery, and the trope of the bank heist.

Bank Job takes its title from a 1999 artwork by Janice Kerbel. Shortly after graduating from a London art school, and with little money in her bank account, Kerbel staked out the Lombard Street branch of Coutts & Co Bank, devising an exhaustively detailed plan for how to rob the bank. In publicly presenting her scheme as an artwork, she nullifies its capacity to incriminate and exposes herself as suspect number one.

The artists in Bank Job allude to or inhabit roles of the con artist, trickster, and saboteur. The very term “con artist” is a combination of “con” short for “confidence” and “artist” to designate someone skilled in the art of deception. Rather than using their skill for personal monetary gain, their currency-focused artworks transgress and subvert structures of power. They take on corporations, banks, and government systems, drawing attention to surveillance and control, and playing with the separation between what remains visible and what remains concealed.

In today’s landscape of increasingly digital financial transactions, coinage, notes, and checks may feel unfamiliar and vintage. During the course of the exhibition, Printmaking, Metalsmithing, and first year Argument and Inquiry courses will engage with Bank Job. Students will produce their own coins, printed notes, and use new imaging technologies to research historical examples of currency in the holdings of the Carleton Art Collection.

Artists in Bank Job include Darren Bader, Chris Burden, Bruce Conner, Genpei Akasegawa, Frank Heath, Devin Kenny, Janice Kerbel, Cildo Meireles, Jill Magid, Bart Thrall, Vaughan Rachel, Edward Kienholz, Andy Warhol, and Constantina Zavitsanos.