In 1997 Danish artist Lars Kræmmer got an idea that would turn out to be a thundering success – an idea that would develop into an international art project and a brand new currency on the world market. cph-art has put on the balaclava, loaded the revolver and kicked in the door to the Bank of International Artmoney. With one purpose only… to empty the till.

There are many versions of the story behind artmoney. One thing is certain. The creator of the concept has succeeded in producing a parallel currency in a world where the value of money is under strict and constant control. This in itself is an achievement. cph-art does not doubt it for one moment. We want to hear the story from the horse’s own mouth. So, ladies and gentlemen, we now present bank manager Lars Kræmmer and the fantastic story of artmoney. A payments arrangement that turns commercial business into an art:

- The whole thing started in December, 1997. At that time I was a painter and had a studio at Islands Brygge. I had been painting for some years and had made a living from it. I felt that my economy was constantly going up and down. My rent was rather steep, I was painting these pictures, and it took a lot of hard work to sell them. So I began to wonder if there might be another way than just selling art. And then I became curious to find out what money actually is. Because you are constantly tumbling into money as a problem. Well, some of us, at any rate. Furthermore money is global, and this I also found interesting. That it concerns all people. I thought it would be interesting to study money through artistic glasses. I had looked at things before through my sight, the visual, or through hearing and feeling. And identity in the form of clothing, too. Things like that, which concern all people, but which we don’t think about in everyday life. It’s the same with money. We don’t give it much thought as a phenomenon. We just spend it. So I thought it would be a fascinating art project to look into: What is money in its essence? And at the same time examine if there might be another possibility than just going out and selling art.

A Sad Affair

- Because selling art is in many ways a sad solution. Especially because you dispose of the art. You produce something you have invested yourself in, which other people most likely don’t understand one bit of. Then you sell it. Part with it. After having spent time and energy producing it. Solely to get some money to pay some phone bills. And then once again you are empty-handed. And that’s sad. And it’s tiresome, too. Being a businessman all the time. Knocking on doors and using one’s energy on it.

The Art of Being Left in Peace

- - So all the time I have looked for another kind of life where I just would be left in peace. So if I did not need to have anything to do with money, I thought, then there might be a chance of finding a little human freedom. Peace. Money is noisy! And then I had seen that if I did a drawing and put my signature on it, I could sell it. So it had some kind of value. What I tried was to make a new bank note that would have some characteristics that differed from what we were used to. To make it a little better, if you will. First of all by making it original. Make it as an original piece of art rather than as a printed matter. And then putting an original signature on it instead of a printed one. And secondly, to make it a little larger than ordinary bank notes so you can see what’s on it. And then make it the size of a hand. Because it’s something that goes from hand to hand. Because we must also be able to deal with it, format-wise. And then the rectangle is simply perfect. Because if we hold it horizontal, we have the format of the classic landscape. And if we hold it vertical, we have the portrait. And between portrait and landscape we are actually covering all human expressions within classic visual art. It turned out that this note could be used for all kinds of things. Then I thought: I must make this note attractive in various ways. Not only with a personal guarantee and saying that it has a physical value as a piece of art. It must tempt people, as well. So I made it very cheap. 10 per cent of the price of art was my price. At that time I was selling my watercolors for 1,000 kroner a piece. So the note should only cost 100 kroner.

An Appeal to Greediness

- So I stipulated seven rules. One of the rules was that the note would rise in value. And that appealed to people’s greediness. So not only was it cheap, but at the same time it was an investment object. And it’s also genuine art, and it’s also a bank note, so I gave it a whole lot of attributes to make it easily negotiable. So I tried going into a store. No, first I called an art collector and asked if he would be interested in changing. And he came to the studio immediately and changed 4 artmoney to 400 kroner. And now we had changed, I told ham. He had not bought art; he had changed to a new currency. This he found much more fascinating, and that made us laugh a lot that day. And all of a sudden now I could see that it worked. So I tried going into a store. I said to the owner, ”I have made my own money. I call it artmoney. Can I use it here?” He said yes, so I chose a CD with Miles Davis, and he rang it up on the cash register and gave me money in return and a receipt. And this started something in me. It was a real transaction. He put that artmoney note into the cash register. Maybe it was beginner’s luck, but it was also exciting because it was so far away from the art galleries. Normally art loses its artistic function when it is taken out of context – when it removes itself from the galleries and museums. Then it is no longer art. You don’t call it art if it’s being sold at a market. Then it is something else. But this note was still art. The concept had followed along. A long way away from the world of art. So I went home and turned it over in my mind. And then I worked out the system.

A Visual Vacuum

- Originally, it was an extension of some other art projects I had made earlier, among them one in ’93 and ’94 in which I sat in a box to study darkness. I was sitting in a visual vacuum for seven weeks. That was the first time I applied the number seven – the number seven that went along to artmoney and the seven rules. That project was followed up with a project in which I wore a black cowl for seven months to find out how clothes influence our identity. In other words, a street project. And after that I had other projects built around the number seven. So artmoney was an extension of these projects in which I study basic human behavior. I was an apprentice of a magician called Aleh Nimkish Kaheen, and he told me about the magic power of numbers. So I chose the number seven, and I have applied it to quite a lot of projects. Numerology and geometry and astrology have always been the foundation of visual art. If you want to analyze a painting, you must know about those things. If not, you will not be able to analyze it properly. Not, at any rate, if we talk about the classic works. Things like that are always behind my projects. Consequently I have been forced to study mysticism. Blavatsky and other mystics.

Homeless

- When I had found out that I could use my artmoney, I produced quite a lot of it. I made it a habit of mine to carry it on me and use it instead of ordinary money. I presented it as an art project-stroke-social project. I started to buy clothes for artmoney and pay café bills with it. Suddenly one day I was evicted from my studio, which made me very sad. I also lived there. They demanded a higher rent and refused to accept artmoney. It was a classic rent gouger’s trick to get rid of me. So I had to move out at very short notice. At one time I had rented a mooring space in Sydhavnen, planning to make a sculpture. Down there I knew a guy called Master Builder Finn, who had bragged that he could build a house in a month. So I asked him if he could do that for me, and he said, ”Yeah, sure, just povide the materials.” So I went to a demolition contractor out on Bryggen and asked them if they would take artmoney, because I would like to buy some building materials. They said all right. So I bought materials for a house, 140 square meters. And I painted quite a lot of artmoney which I delivered the following week in a suitcase like in an Olsen Gang movie. And then they came and dropped a house on my lot. All we had to do was assemble it. The Master Builder and I did that in 23 days. It was fantastic. Within a month I succeeded in building a real house in Copenhagen. Paid with a suitcase of artmoney. It was like pouring gasoline on a fire.

The Art of Laughing All the Way to the Bank

- It gave me so much energy. And others too. And then the artist Vincent joined the project. He already lived in Sydhavnen where he had built a house. He, too, needed money so we made the Internet bank, the Bank of International Artmoney. At the beginning we were just the two of us. Vincent also began to make artmoney and also found out how to use it successfully. But then it sort of stopped there. Because nobody else wanted to join us. Nobody believed in the idea. Among artists, that is. Artists are fucking skeptical. If you present your personal project and try to make them eat it, they rear. I might as well forget all about that. So for a long time nobody wanted to join in – even though we had opened up the bank to the whole world on the Internet. I simply had to entice the first artists. So I arranged an exhibition in Manhattan at a highly respected place called the Gathering of the Tribes Gallery in Lower Eastside. Then I went on bike to all the Danish studios and said, ”If you join this project, you’ll get an exhibition in New York.” That tickled them pink, naturally. So I went to New York, arranged the exhibition and told the Americans the same thing. They would like to be shown in Europe. So they joined too. And this provided the critical substance that’s needed to make people think it’s fun to be a part of.

Assistance from the Sister Nation

- Suddenly one day a Norwegian TV show noticed the project. It was called ’Gydas Vei’ and was a very serious cultural show. They had heard about artmoney because there had been a feature article about us in Politiken. So they were here for three days to make this documentary. We walked around in Copenhagen and ate at restaurants, paying with artmoney. And that was even easier when you brought a film crew with you. Nobody turned us down. So we just walked around spending it. I even tried to change artmoney at Forex at the Central Railway Station. But no. They said they could not change it without a go-ahead from the top boss. But the documentary meant that artmoney became so famous in Norway that I could use it almost all places in Bergen when I went up there as part of a grand exhibition at Bergen Art Society. That resulted in Ole Lindboe’s TV show Art Dead On in Denmark wishing to make a presentation, and that started a rather big media interest in the project, and then it grew from there.

Budgets with a Vengeance

- But it was in 2003 that we went from being an art project to being a bank. That was the year we held an exhibition in Øksnehallen. This was special because no other artists had been entrusted with the big hall in Øksnehallen before. Or since, for that matter. So it was like a wild dream come true. I was out some place telling about artmoney, and then one from the audience came up to me and asked if I would be able to fill Øksnehallen with young artists, because they had a gap in their calendar, and I just said yes. I was not aware of the consequences. They had three million kroner to spend on the exhibition, so it was simply fantastic. They let me spend it on a very, very nice set-up. With 100 showcases spread out over those 5,000 square meters. Then a lot of celebrities entered the project. And the principal speaker was Erik Hoffmeyer, the former Governor of the National Bank. All this helped artmoney move into a different framework. It happened when he went on the rostrum and started telling about artmoney. Then you could see people thinking “Wow!” The same week artmoney was mentioned by minister of finance Thor Petersen in TV. He was sitting there stating that he thought artmoney was a great idea. And I thought: That is our minister of finance. What had been fun now became something social. And ever since then it has just grown vigorously. We now have more than 1,000 artists in the Bank of International Artmoney, from some 40 countries.

A Box That’s Booming

- At our head office here in Frederiksberg we have more than 10,000 artmoney. They are all on commission. What you do, is that you make one artmoney, which you send to the bank. Then you have signed up. And then you can make your own artmoney out in your local environment. This artmoney does not have to go via the bank. In this way we maintain it as an anarchistic project which creates the greatest possible freedom for each artist. Participation is free of charge. All you have to do is send in the one artmoney and fill in a form. That way it’s very easily accessible, and then you can use it as you please. You can also sell your artmoney via our website. At first it was meant as a service, but later on it has become a business.

Behind Bars

- Two years ago I received at letter from the FSA. It’s their job to keep an eye on the banks. The letter had a very elegant letterhead, and it said that I was looking at four months in prison for using the word ’bank’. I didn’t believe my own eyes. I called them, and they said, that it was absolutely not meant as a joke. I could not really see the problem. I invited them to come to my studio, so they could see that it was not a bank. But they didn’t care about my studio. They had read on the Internet that it said it was a bank. I appealed the decision to the Trade Appeals Committee, and we wrote back and forth for 18 months, ending with the Appeals Committee supporting the views of the FSA. Ironically, it was section 7 in the Financial Business Act that I had offended. It’s the one that says that one cannot use the word ’bank’ if one is not a bank. I can see quite a few problems in that, in relation to the freedom of speech, as the word is not a logo and therefore not protected as such. It’s a protected word, but they can’t do that if you ask me, because it’s a word from the dictionary belonging to all of us, and then an institution suddenly states that this word is prohibited. I can’t accept that. Now another 18 months passed, and then I was officially charged by the fraud squad, i.e. the Economic Crime Unit in Store Kongensgade. They brought me in for questioning quite recently. There charged me, because I still pleaded not guilty. I could also just have gone directly in prison. Then a couple of weeks later I received a letter that the charge against me had been dropped. Without any explanation. On the other hand my firm was now charged after the same section. So now I’m not going to jail. But instead the firm faces a fine of 2,000 kroner, and I’m deprived of the right to use the word ’bank’. I don’t intend to pay the fine, because I feel this is a test case that might influence other future art projects, too.

The Art of Being Alike

- I have worked on this project for 11 years. And I have been forced to swallow some camels. Because right from the start I decided that there would be no censorship. And this is far from normal in the art world. That concept. I simply did it in order to let in art from all over the world. If we were to have had a Danish censorship committee looking at art coming in from Africa or Latin America or Asia, then not very much would have been accepted. If any. The purpose of the project is making people alike, you see. Providing people with the same platform. The same value. The same possibility to create art within the same scope and with the same recognition. That’s why there should be no censorship. Age, artistic background, education and so on: Forget about it! All are alike. And that also meant that all kinds of crap came through the door, which I had to get used to looking at. And accept. So personally I have learned how to find an interest in other people, separated from my personal taste. It has been a cool exercise. I have become much better to listen to other people, to find them interesting. I have learned to respect other people. On a personal level it has made me a better human being. This makes me very happy.

The bank manager is happy. Last year the Internet auctioneering firm Lauritz.com joined up as a commercial partner, and true to his habits and his art Lars Kræmmer paid his part of the newly established partnership with freshly painted artmoney. The Revenue Department has recently issued an artmoney declaration ranking artmoney along with ordinary money from a fiscal point of view. All over the world shops, restaurants, hotels and a large number of other businesses are registering themselves as receivers of artmoney. On Artmoney’s website you can furthermore find artmoney hosts opening their homes to other artmoney artists. Each day new artmoney artists are registered, and once you have seen the glow in the eyes of the honorable bank manager Kræmmer, it’s probably just a matter of time before artmoney is the ’ordinary’ money.

Thus ends our story, and as always a new one can begin. But if you feel the desire for an encore from art’s fiscal adventure, we’ll include a final anecdote:

- I always pay with artmoney when I’m travelling. On my latest journey I went to Canada. Here I bought an old motor bike. During the next six months I rode for 10,000 kilometers. Down through the United States and out into the desert in Mexico. I paid the whole trip with artmoney. Small hotels, restaurants and shops. I was met with a very positive feeling. And it was positive precisely because I presented something that was different. People get excited and glad. So it is a much more personal and kind way of trading than if you present your Visa-MasterCard. Not that it leads into very long conversations, because you just show your artmoney. And then they will decide if they like it or not. And we are talking about people, mind you, that have never heard about artmoney before. That’s the element of surprise. The fact that people think it’s fun, makes all the difference.

A Question of Money

Artistic souls throughout the land ... you are only one click away from a life-expanding experience of the finest carat. One click from a step into another dimension. Seize your mouse and click: www.artmoney.org. The rest is just a question of money.

Photo: Zenia Grynberg

 P.S. lates news Lauritz.com like to stop kollaboration vis Artmoney and get invested money back.