Maybe he made it up

Letters

Vol. 24 No. 12 · 27 June 2002

From Christopher Prendergast

I wonder how Terry Eagleton's argument on the topic of forgery, counterfeiting and plagiarism (LRB, 6 June) would stand to the intriguing case of the currency-artist, J.S.G. Boggs. Some fifteen years ago, Boggs produced a series of facsimiles of the US dollar in various denominations but on one side of the paper only. He then used them to trade, not as pretend legal tender but as works of art, in exchange for goods and services to the value represented on the bits of paper. A work of art representing a $100 bill was 'spent' for one hundred dollars' worth of merchandise (there was a further complication when 'change' was required). Subsequently, he upped the ante with what he called the 'Pittsburgh Project'. This involved producing a new edition of his partial facsimiles and then laser-copying them to the tune of a million dollars' worth, with a view to putting them into limited circulation; they could be used by their original 'purchaser' to purchase goods and services in turn, and so on. He also added a design on the back of the 'bills' consisting of five circles, in which the new purchasers were to place their thumbprint as a mark of ownership. The 'bills' could thus change hands up to five times.

Clearly, Boggs's creations were neither forged nor counterfeit banknotes, and at no point did he ever seek to pass them off as legal currency. This did not prevent the US Treasury, Secret Service and IRS from hitting the panic-buttons. They saw very clearly the potential threat to the fiduciary foundations of a monetary system (the sort of thing that obsessed those reluctant to leave the Gold Standard in Keynes's time). Since Boggs had done nothing illegal, they could not arrest him. He was, however, subjected to surveillance, raids, confiscations and harassments. Once again, he turned the screw tighter, making a new $10 bill with a representation of the Supreme Court on the back (the 'Supreme Court ten'). Citing the example of the Irish writers who forged literary 'originals' in order to discredit English writers by claiming their works were derivatives of the mythical originals, Eagleton claims that in the matter of forgery there is often a politics of origin, authenticity and identity. But this seems small beer compared with the provocative challenge to the authority of the state engineered by Boggs. The Irish forgers could always be exposed: in Boggs's case, there was nothing to 'expose' – everything was, so to speak, above board.

Christopher Prendergast
King’s College, Cambridge

From Nick Groom

Terry Eagleton is correct when he claims to have written my book The Forger's Shadow on my behalf. I should know – I wrote his review.

Nick Groom
University of Bristol

Vol. 24 No. 14 · 25 July 2002

From Nick Groom

Christopher Prendergast (Letters, 27 June) asks whether the currency-artist J.S.G. Boggs can be thought of as a counterfeiter or a forger, since, in his work, everything is, 'so to speak, above board'. Despite this, he has been arrested twice, and is currently embroiled in a protracted legal battle. In 1986, Boggs was arrested in England under Section 18 of the 1981 Forgery and Counterfeiting Act. The US Secret Service declined to join the Bank of England in the prosecution and Boggs was eventually acquitted by a jury in 1987. He was arrested again in Australia in 1989 by the Federal Currency Squad; when the case came to court it was thrown out and he received $20,000 damages. When the US Secret Service raided his studio in the early 1990s, Boggs filed a civil suit, and then appealed when the judgment found partially in favour of the Secret Service. The case continues and commentators believe it will reach the Supreme Court, not least because Boggs is paying his lawyers in Boggs bills he is printing himself. These bills are artistic forgeries which make use of certain generic and economic traits rather than counterfeits; they are originals, not copies. A Boggs piece rarely consists simply of the redesigned note. He performs transactions as part of his artwork, and has used his bills and more recently plastic coins to buy hamburgers, a Harley-Davidson, even gold bullion. The artworks become composite pieces, consisting of the Boggs bill, the transaction, the item purchased, the receipt for goods or services, any change and so on, and aspiring collectors are invited to recover as many of these constituent parts as they can. Boggs dismantles the illusion that authenticity is an inherent quality in an object such as a five-pound note or ten-dollar bill; it is rather a supposition briefly shared by buyer and seller – the convention of a certain economic genre. Boggs is mimicking this genre.

Nick Groom
University of Bristol