BREAD
Maurizio Cattelan
Italian, born 1960
2021
An artist’s book made by binding one hundred U.S. one‑dollar bills into a cloth‑covered volume as a pointed meditation on money, value, and what makes an object art.
At first glance it appears as an unassuming black cloth book with MAURIZIO CATTELAN stamped in small gold letters, a quiet, formal object whose plainness becomes striking once you realize its pages are real currency.
By converting paper money into the pages of a book, Cattelan extends conceptual traditions that use the readymade to expose and critique the systems—economic, institutional, and symbolic—that assign value to art and everyday objects.
Medium
Artist's book of one hundred U.S. one dollar bills bound in a fabric hardcover volume
Dimensions
page (each): 2 5/8 × 6 1/8" (6.6 × 15.5 cm); book, closed: 3 × 6 1/4 × 3/4" (7.6 × 15.9 × 1.9 cm); red slipcase: 3 1/4 × 6 5/16 × 1" (8.3 × 16.1 × 2.5 cm); black box: 6 9/16 × 8 15/16 × 1 1/2" (16.7 × 22.7 × 3.8 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Monroe Wheeler Fund
Accession
215.2023
Palette
Exhibitions
