Untitled (dollar bill back) is a new limited edition print by American artist Tom Friedman. Here, the artist replicates in stunning detail the reverse of a United States one-dollar bill, its traditional muted green form now a psychedelic explosion of vivid colour. Printed using a 40-colour process on to handmade French paper the kaleidoscopic dollar bill is presented enlarged to iconic scale.
This ubiquitous currency is transformed by Friedman’s touch and exemplifies perfectly his uncanny ability to use a mundane object as a catalyst for artistic revelation. The work depicts the most frequently reproduced and circulated bank note, questioning the status of the object and the relationship between art and commodity.
Solo exhibitions of Tom Friedman’s work have been held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1995, the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996, and at the Prada foundation in Milan in 2002. His first mid-career retrospective ran from 2000 to 2002 and toured to the following venues: the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts, San Francisco; Southeastern Centre for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem; Aspen Art Museum, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. His work has been included in group exhibitions at The Hudson Valley Centre for Contemporary Art in Peekskill, New York in 2004, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts in 2004, Castello di Rivoli in Rivoli, Italy in 2003, and the Denver Art Museum in 2002, among others.