John Baldessari is one of the seminal figures in the conceptual art movement. Since the 1960s, Baldessari has greatly influenced generations of artists with works that explore the connections among representation, language, and popular culture. With his distinct deadpan approach, the artist has created a new, thought-provoking roadside attraction for 10th Avenue with a gigantic representation of a $100,000 bill.
The $100,000 bill plays a special role in the history of currency in the United States. For a three-week period spanning 1934 and 1935, in the throes of the Great Depression, the United States government printed 42,000 of these bills and released them as gold certificates to Federal Reserve Banks that had equal amounts of gold in the Treasury. The bills were never circulated among the general public, and in the 1960s, the government recalled the bills following advances in wire transfer technology. Most of the bills were destroyed, but some relics remain at branches of the Federal Reserve and the Smithsonian Museum. The $100,000 bill holds the record as the highest denomination currency ever issued by the United States and carries an image of Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States.
(1-3) Photo by Austin Kennedy. (4-5) Photo by Bill Orcutt.