What is Currency Art or Art Money?

Currency art, is art that refers in some way to currency. Like other art , currency art  is real property and not, as monetary currency is, a representation of real property. That is to say, currency art, whether original or multiple is the art object and not a stand in for the art object.
Like all real properties, currency art can have an economic ( $$ ) value ascribed to it according to market forces, whether real or imagined, and can be bought and sold like any other real property.  The shape, form and style of currency art is as varied as any other art form and as varied as the artists that, all around the world, have chosen to work in the currency idiom. Currency art is not state currency. The value of art tends to be stable in relation to the constantly devalued currencies of the world. That is, while the actual purchasing power of currency goes down the dollar value of art tends to stay constant or increase: is worth more over time as opposed to worth less like currency. We, all of us are familiar with the constantly increasing cost of consumer goods and other real properties such as real estate. We say they cost more to buy. Each price increase of goods is a decrease in the value of a currency. Devaluation. For example, after graduating from high school and illegally going into taverns to purchase glasses of beer at the age of seventeen I observed that each glass of beer cost me 20 cents. Five dollars bought me and my dear young friends 25 glasses of beer. Much more than we could intelligently drink. Today the same five dollar bank note will, in many places, buy one glass of beer and leave a small tip for the server. The bank note is clearly worth less now than then or the beer is now worth more. The real beer increases in value and the currency is devalued. By contrast, a small print purchased in 1972 has increased in value 20 fold.

Not every currency artist is interested in the value of art or currency per se and so, currency art can vary widely in it's appearance and purpose and beyond a general reference to currency, may belong to a broad range of styles. Although most currency art tends to have some expression of dollar value in or on it , even this is not necessarily required to qualify it as currency art. There are no hard and fast rules. The idiom has a very broad range and depth in terms of content and purpose. Artists making their own currency and the values that are called into question  by this, are most interesting from an intellectual stand point and cause the most confusion in the market place. A person confronted with an art work that looks like money is almost always suspicious of what they see. Naturally, an art work is expected to look like an art work and when it looks like money a number of  thoughts and concerns come up. Thoughts of counterfeit and fraud appear first and the usual guards against these must be first set aside. The more the art work resembles money the stronger these feelings will be. The internationally acclaimed artist  J. S. G. Boggs works this membrane of caution and confusion with the greatest skill and is primarily interested in the performance aspect of the "reverse con:"  "spending" his art works ( right down to getting back the correct change and a receipt ) "as if" they were state currency. He reenacts this lesson in real property value over and over and proves, beyond doubt, the real value of art and the "not real" value of state currencies. 

Community currencies such as Calgary Dollars, Saltspring Dollars are  alternate forms of currency. These "dollars" are exchanged for goods and services in the same way state currency is exchanged and taxed. Saltspring island dollars have an at par value with Canadian currency and a profit on issue is achieved by two year expiry time. All unredeemed notes are profit for the Salt Spring Island Monetary Foundation ( I.M.F. )