Welcome to Tregoning & Company
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Altered Value
The Art of Funny Money
Opens October 19, 2018
On October 19, 2018, the Cleveland, Ohio-based 1984 Publishing (1984publishing.com) will release Altered Value: The Art of Funny Money by Josh Usmani. The 224-page, full-color, lavish hardbound book collects more than 150 of Usmani’s original, unique drawings on real currency from more than 35 countries. The book’s release will coincide with an exhibition of new work from the book at Tregoning & Company at 78th Street Studios.
Ten years ago, Josh Usmani quit his full-time day job to pursue a career as a professional artist without a penny to his name. Months later, the 2008 economic meltdown sent his new aspirations spiraling into uncertainty. Serendipitously, Usmani’s lifelong monetary problems became the inspiration for artwork on currency, exploring the value of creative expression. What began as a tongue-in-cheek political protest ten years ago has evolved into a visually spectacular and thoughtfully creative exploration of value itself.
Usmani believes that value is an abstract concept, and as a society, we use money to measure worth between various, unrelated goods and services. However, he argues that in our capitalistic society money has become a coveted symbol of value itself. By drawing directly on actual bills, Josh encourages viewers to explore creative expression and question the concept of value itself. He has certainly altered these notes’ worth, but whether Josh has increased or decreased their value is up to each viewer to decide.
Altered Value: The Art of Funny Money retails for $40 USD and will be available online via Amazon and bookstores worldwide. The first 500 copies of the book will be signed and numbered by the artist. In addition to the artwork, Altered Value includes a foreword by noted currency collage artist Mark Wagner, an introduction to the project by Usmani (including a “Frequently Asked Questions” page), step-by-step process notes, and additional contextual information in selected captions. For the first time, viewers have unprecedented access into the artist’s intentions and creative process.
50 copies of a limited Artist Edition ($100 USD) will also be available via 1984Publishing.com. The Artist Edition contains a real dollar bill with hand-colored letters and numbers, as well as a full-color clown portrait – just like the ones seen in Altered Value (valued at $100 USD). As an added bonus, one out of every ten copies of the Artist Edition will contain a randomly-inserted, original, fully-rendered Funny Money drawing ($450 USD value).
The book launch exhibition takes place from 5 to 9 p.m. EST on Friday, October 19 at Tregoning & Company (1300 West 78th Street, Cleveland, OH). The work will remain on view through December 1 during regular business hours or by appointment. A second reception will take place on from 5 to 9 p.m. on Friday, November 16, as well a speaking engagement and book signing to be announced soon. All events are free and open to the public. For more information on the exhibition and related events, visit TregoningAndCo.com.
"In an age of hyperinflation in the art market, I believe that turning money into art and back into more money is the most appropriate response to the reality of the current situation." - Josh Usmani
On October 19, 2018, the Cleveland, Ohio-based 1984 Publishing (1984publishing.com) will release Altered Value: The Art of Funny Money by Josh Usmani. The 224-page, full-color, lavish hardbound book collects more than 150 of Usmani’s original, unique drawings on real currency from more than 35 countries. The book’s release will coincide with an exhibition of new work from the book at Tregoning & Company at 78th Street Studios.
Ten years ago, Josh Usmani quit his full-time day job to pursue a career as a professional artist without a penny to his name. Months later, the 2008 economic meltdown sent his new aspirations spiraling into uncertainty. Serendipitously, Usmani’s lifelong monetary problems became the inspiration for artwork on currency, exploring the value of creative expression. What began as a tongue-in-cheek political protest ten years ago has evolved into a visually spectacular and thoughtfully creative exploration of value itself.
Usmani believes that value is an abstract concept, and as a society, we use money to measure worth between various, unrelated goods and services. However, he argues that in our capitalistic society money has become a coveted symbol of value itself. By drawing directly on actual bills, Josh encourages viewers to explore creative expression and question the concept of value itself. He has certainly altered these notes’ worth, but whether Josh has increased or decreased their value is up to each viewer to decide.
Altered Value: The Art of Funny Money retails for $40 USD and will be available online via Amazon and bookstores worldwide. The first 500 copies of the book will be signed and numbered by the artist. In addition to the artwork, Altered Value includes a foreword by noted currency collage artist Mark Wagner, an introduction to the project by Usmani (including a “Frequently Asked Questions” page), step-by-step process notes, and additional contextual information in selected captions. For the first time, viewers have unprecedented access into the artist’s intentions and creative process.
50 copies of a limited Artist Edition ($100 USD) will also be available via 1984Publishing.com. The Artist Edition contains a real dollar bill with hand-colored letters and numbers, as well as a full-color clown portrait – just like the ones seen in Altered Value (valued at $100 USD). As an added bonus, one out of every ten copies of the Artist Edition will contain a randomly-inserted, original, fully-rendered Funny Money drawing ($450 USD value).
The book launch exhibition takes place from 5 to 9 p.m. EST on Friday, October 19 at Tregoning & Company (1300 West 78th Street, Cleveland, OH). The work will remain on view through December 1 during regular business hours or by appointment. A second reception will take place on from 5 to 9 p.m. on Friday, November 16, as well a speaking engagement and book signing to be announced soon. All events are free and open to the public. For more information on the exhibition and related events, visit TregoningAndCo.com.
"In an age of hyperinflation in the art market, I believe that turning money into art and back into more money is the most appropriate response to the reality of the current situation." - Josh Usmani
MASUMI HAYASHI
PANORAMIC PHOTO COLLAGES 1976 - 2006
For two decades, Masumi Hayashi used art to awaken people gently but insistently to societal ills. Her photo collages applied photography's most seductive traits -- believability and formal beauty -- to explore disturbing subjects including deserted Rust Belt landscapes, decaying abandoned prisons, EPA Superfund sites, and desolate ruins of the relocation camps where Japanese Americans were interned during World War II. Hayashi meant these photographs "to be appreciated for their beauty on one level yet, on another, to create irony and tension."
CAN Triennial at T&Co
July 6 - 25, 2018
Come to Tregoning for the CAN Triennial. We are hosting exhibitions provided by
Thomas French Fine Art, LLC and Art Neo. The shows display excellent works for Louise Nevelson (1899 - 1988) and many of Northeast Ohio's famed artists. The Nevelson collection is available for purchase.
LOUISE NEVELSON
Collage, Jewelry, Photographs, Prints, and Sculpture
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"But when I fell in love with black, it contained all color. It wasn't a negation of color. It was an acceptance. Because black encompasses all colors. ... You can be quiet and it contains the whole thing. There is no color that will give you the feeling of totality. Of peace. Of greatness. Of quietness. Of excitement. I have seen things that were transformed into black, that took on just greatness. I don't know a lesser word." -- Louise Nevelson
Nevelson gained much of her recognition through her numerous exhibitions worldwide. Her rise to fame was driven by Arnie Glimcher's opening of PACE Gallery in Boston and shortly after moving to New York City. Her earlier dealers included Nierendorf Gallery and Martha Jackson Gallery, both hugely influential in establishing Modern Art in America. She embodied and emblazoned the moniker 'tortured artist.' For decades, Nevelson vehemently fought the patriarchy and her male peers not wanting to be known for her gender, but for her pure talent. Nevelson was influenced heavily by her mother's sense of fashion and beauty. She coined herself "the original recycler" a scavenger and one can draw parallels and inspiration to and from Marcel Duchamp's found object sculptures of her early career. This exhibition will be open to the public throughout the month of July and will feature numerous Nevelson creations given to her longtime studio assistant, Diana MacKown, and works from the collection of Arthur Brandt. These works run from the 1930's through her death in the late 1980s, showing the entire course of her life's creativity. |
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David Batz
An Impassioned Journey A Life in Ceramics and Painting April 20, 2018 T&Co is delighted to offer Cleveland collectors and enthusiasts, the ceramics and works on paper by DAVID BATZ (1944-1994), in an exhibition and sale: “DAVID BATZ | Impassioned Journey: A Life in Ceramics and Painting.” Not seen since 2000, David’s delightful, and frequently awesome ceramic works fill the gallery, set off against many of his paintings on hand-made paper. Batz was a BFA/MA graduate from Rhode Island School of Design, and became a teacher of ceramics at the Cleveland Institute of Art from 1970-1974, before opening the Fiori Gallery in Little Italy, and working full time as an artist in his own studio. His works were selected for exhibition in over 17 Cleveland Museum May Shows, as well as numerous other exhibitions. David tragically died in 1994 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. His art has been under the care of his surviving partner Robert Jursinski ever since, and was last seen in a retrospective show at the Cleveland Artists Foundation/now ARTneo/in Lakewood in 2000. |
Now available for this exhibition is the catalog, David Batz: An Impassioned Journey. Limited supply, Order now!
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Click here to read Michael Butz's article on Baggage Claim in CANVAS
Eterovich on Ideastream!
Listen to the T&Co interview here with Ideastreams' Dee Perry on The Sound of Applause! Perry speaks to curators Bill Tregoning of Tregoning & Company and the Cleveland Institute of Art's Bruce Checefsky about the work of Cleveland artist and educator Anthony Eterovich and the city-wide exhibition celebrating the centennial of his birth.
78th Street Studios - Third Friday Art Walks featured on WKYC 3
CLEVELAND -- The building is a former automotive factory and once was the American Greetings headquarters. Now the 78th Street Studios is the largest fine art complex of it's kind in Northeast Ohio and it's drawing artists and crowds to the Gordon Square art district every month. Although the building takes up the majority of a city block, it still feels like a hidden gem. Inside, 47 creative businesses occupy different creative spaces on three floors.
