MONEY DOESN’T STINK

 

Olfactory installation, 2018

 

Marcel Broodthaers famously created a fictitious 'Museum of Modern Art' and then publicly declared its bankruptcy, inviting spectators to participate in the museum's fate by purchasing a gold bar bearing its mark at twice its market value. In homage to this conceptual gesture, I have created my own ingot. Unlike Broodthaers's work, however, it bears no stamps, markings, or institutional identifiers, serving as a faceless symbol of the contemporary art market.

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The series Money Does Not Stink is a product of industrial manufacture: the objects are almost entirely removed from the artist's hand. Iron sheets, inscriptions, ingots, fabric, and bollards were manufactured in factories. This raises questions: what constitutes art? What determines its price? Can I set a high value, or should I charge only for materials? Does narrative increase market value? How much is the idea itself worth?

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For me, the goal was to produce a series in which my conceptual intention is realised through the labour of others, with minimal direct engagement with the material. The project interrogates the mechanisms of valuation in contemporary art: the relationship between effort, authorship, narrative, and market perception.

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Originally, the ingot was intended to carry the scent of excrement, referencing the expression 'Money does not stink', which originated in ancient Rome when the emperor imposed a tax on public toilets. Due to practical constraints, however, it now carries the metallic and citrusy scent of iron and orange, preserving a subtle conceptual trace of its origin.

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Money Does Not Stink reflects on the intersection of production, authorship, and value – questioning how much of art's worth lies in labour, material, narrative, or the idea itself.

 

Publications about project:

2020 “Lisa Shtormit”, Online magazine Creative process, USA 

2019 “Artist Lisa Shtormit and her scent installation Money Doesn't Smell at Winzavod Open Studios", ARTuzel.com, Russia​