Legendary artist and disruptor Tristan Eaton explores money, art, and artist sovereignty in his latest work, Slices. Using his 192” x 96” painting “Apocalipstick 2022,” appraised at $75,000, he is releasing a series of small fine art prints that each represent ownership of 1/1000th of the painting. With this, the painting is fractionalized into a currency called Slices which can be redeemed for for Eaton and Dead Press physical goods, at which point the bills will be resold on his site and effectively put back into circulation. “I wanted to create money that looks like art and art that acts like money. This is not crypto, it’s physical. Money is powerful, scary and polarizing. It’s taboo to talk about and it controls all of our lives. This makes it ripe for artistic dissection and introspection. Slices seeks to take back control of the money in our lives and make it social and beautiful.”
With a rich history of culture-jamming in his alter-ego Trustocorp that made headlines with fake street signs across the US and fake products in grocery stores, Eaton is now taking the social currency of his extremely popular Fine Art Prints and turning them into actual currency with social perks and utility. This gamified project takes advantage of Eaton’s in-house print studio Dead Press to challenge ingrained ideas about commodification.
The value of Slices is determined by the current appraisal of the painting, and therefore subject to change just as we see inflation and deflation in the market. Currently, each slice is valued at $75. On December 14th at 3pm PST the affordable, egalitarian, experimental approach to printmaking goes live, ushering in a new era.
