»honesty« by john ilg
my original concept for the piece was to challenge a person’s moral fiber when presented with a temptation. i presented 316 dollar bills rolled and inserted into hardware mesh with nothing but friction and viewers’ ability to resist temptation being the only forces holding them in place. at its debut showing at the 2008 minnesota state fair fine arts exhibition (where 200,000+ people would be passing by), i expected such a number of bills would be taken so the word “honesty” would dissolve into illegibility—wouldn’t take many missing to have this happen—and eventually all would be gone. but minnesotans = hyper-honest! in fact, people could not keep their hands off the money but not as expected. to my surprise and financial good fortune, people inserted nearly $150.00 additional dollars into the piece! although people altered the letters somewhat, (especially adding to the “y’) they didn’t remove or replace any bills as i had originally inserted them. watching people “work on” this piece was a delight for the staff and i heard many funny stories. as an added bonus and to show that nature imitates art in perverse ways, the economy headed deeply south about a month after that showing and the recession was on. “honesty” turned out to be an unexpectedly interactive piece that got under people’s psychological skin. it is about both the force at the center of our ethical self and resistance to temptation. the piece calls on the psychological space between trust and integrity, desire and restraint, impulse and regret.
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