Value Quest—The Golden Card

Poses the question what social, ethical, ideological, or aesthetic values we are striving for?

Nowadays people know the price of everything and value of nothing,
wrote Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890.

Urtica’s statement:

Through the allegorical use of gold, the mythic metal, juxtaposed with plastic, the cheap synthetic material, we play with a notion of “commodity fetishism” and the relation between item’s commodity value and its symbolic value. In the past gold was among the most desirable and sought-after goods with particularly ambivalent symbolic. Economist J.M.Kynes stated: “when there is a gold, there is a civilization,” but historian P.Vilar added: “when there is no gold, there is progress because the gold is sought-after.”

The symbol of The Golden Card is a bird. An inspiration to use the bird as a symbol of Value Quest came from an ancient poem The Bird Parliament (1177) describing an arduous quest of birds for a new king.

We were asked frequently is there a money on The Golden Card? No, there is not. A golden card is a status symbol, and our intention was to imply the notion of value. In this case we did not refer on a monetary value but the artistic one. The Golden Card is deposit of artistic value. Each card number contains coded answer to the question what is value, e.g. GOLD: 1121 0004 1111 1110.

VQ The Golden Card is produced as a miniature graphic, screen-printing on PVC, print run 250.

Background: Money, as an expression of value, is a symbol that tells us about relations between individual and society, and socio-economic circumstances. It is used as an instrument of government's policy, it serves as a measure of value, and a deposit of value, and as a medium of exchange it connects people and cultures. The money appeared as a result of trade and it had different forms during the history. Shells, stones, domestic animals, cereals, cocoa beans, were used as units of value within ancient civilizations and early societies. Precious metals appeared later and came into use primarily as international currency. But the problem with gold, or silver, was that they were withdrawn from circulation because people were inclined to treasure them. In the course of time cheap paper money replaced precious metals, and nowadays payments are made in a virtual world through electronic banking and plastic cards.

PLASTICS… It’s a great future in plastics think about it. Will you think about it?
Film The Graduate, 1967