Tendered Currency, 2012, Roadkill Diamond:
Diamond made from armadillo ashes, glass, armadillo remains, identification tag, and certificate of authenticity; Superman Diamond: Diamond made from script of Superman III (1983), glass, paper, and certificate of authenticity; Gunpowder Diamond: Diamond made from gunpowder, glass, ammunition, and certificate of authenticity. Courtesy the artist.
Tendered Currency (detail), 2012, Gunpowder Diamond: Diamond made from gunpowder, glass, ammunition, and certificate of authenticity. Courtesy the artist.
Tendered Currency (2012) consists of three laboratory-generated diamonds created using carbon extracted from materials the artist considers culturally charged: gunpowder, an armadillo (the state animal of Texas) slain by car, and 32 pages from the film script for Superman III (1983).
The installation explores systems of perceived value, labor, and desire. The three diamonds were created using a High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) gem manufacturing process and each diamond has a microscopic laser-inscription with a unique identifier, carbon source, artist name, and date. The diamonds are accompanied by custom hand-crafted glass bell jars and ephemera evidencing their creation process, along with certificates of appraisal and authenticity.
Both diamonds and art are symbols of scarcity, emotion, investment, luxury, taste, and exertion; both economies rely on cheap labor, careful manipulation of supply, and manufactured demand within insulated markets. As capital moves with increasing velocity, value itself has become an increasingly variable and subjective denominator in society, influencing the definition of art, and what it might obtain in both cultural and economic terms. Tendered Currency collaborates with these systems to investigate what we value and how we value it.
Shane Mecklenburger is an intermedia artist exploring systems of manufactured value, simulation, desire and investment. He received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2009) and is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in the Department of Art. His installation, sculpture, video and new media projects have exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK (2015), Eyebeam, New York, NY (2014), The Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH (2014), Bitforms Gallery, New York, NY (2013), Phoenix Art Museum, AZ (2013, The Dallas Museum of Art, TX (2012), El Centro Cultural Paso Del Norte, Juarez, Mexico (2011), and the El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, TX (2010).