Only in East Hampton do artists literally offer up free money on a silver platter.
Later this summer, the interactive exhibit “Free Clean Money” — a collaboration by artist Katherine McMahon and musician Ray Angry, to be held at Guild Hall — will feature trays of $1 bills for guests to help themselves to, “with no … conditions,” said McMahon.
Throughout the night — or, at least, as long as the $500 lasts — she will routinely sanitize the currency with Lysol spray, while Angry performs his latest work, “The Protest,” on a nearby piano.
The idea was “born out of this fantasy that money is free — but money is never free or clean,” McMahon said. “[It] contends with the individual’s hardwired attraction to money, the hoarding of wealth, and an attempt at detachment from it.”
The question is: Will Hamptonites be able to resist the bucks, or will a cash grab be seen as trés gauche?
“A buck won’t cut it out here,” said Steve Haweeli, a Hamptons local and owner of WordHampton PR. “If it was $100 [bills], I may rearrange my schedule.”
“Someone could ransack the whole thing, or take a dollar and move on,” McMahon said. “I am curious to see how people engage with it. This is about economic inequality and money’s position at the intersection of the global pandemic and the recent protests.”
The East Hampton resident told The Post she is using her own funds for the piece, which she was inspired to create after hearing Angry’s new instrumental song “The Protest,” which he composed after walking in several Black Lives Matter protests.
“Free Clean Money” is expected to open late July or early August in line with Long Island’s Phase Four reopening.
Haweeli predicted: “That exhibit will be bankrupt in an hour — by unemployed folks from New York City. Locals are too busy changing sheets for the next AirBnB guest.”
During the COVID crisis, the Hamptons saw tensions rise between its uber-wealthy part-time inhabitants and lower-income year-round residents as wealthy New York City residents including social-media influencer Arielle Charnas, CNN’s Chris Cuomo and ABC’s George Stephanopolous fled the city, later finding out they were sick.
The migration out East stretched the local medical system to its limit, and also caused food and cleaning supply shortages as the wealthy cleaned out grocery stores, leaving locals high and dry.
This week, hostilities once again burst onto the public eye when a caravan of protesters — some wielding plastic pitchforks — descended on the Hamptons to blast the rich and decry the nation’s rising income inequality.
Angry, a Brooklyn resident who has collaborated with Elvis Costello, John Legend, and Patti Labelle said, “East Hampton is the perfect place for this installation … [if someone takes all the money in one go] I will be excited.”
Additional reporting by Beth Landman
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July 05, 2020 at 04:30AM
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Artist giving out 'free clean money' on silver platter in The Hamptons - New York Post
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