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BANKING CRISES & INFLATION CRISES - 2023

‘Banking Crises & Inflation Crises’ is a sculptural composition inspired by economic graphs found in a working paper available on the website of The Central Bank of Iceland – “The Long History of Financial Boom-Bust Cycles in Iceland.” This paper maps out several types of financial crises for the sake of finding patterns on which future predictions can be made. Of which, graphs describing inflation crises (from 1916 to 1989) and banking crises (1919-2009) are the sources for a composition vaguely reminiscent of two bed frames rendered in steel – though elongated in the case of ‘Inflation Crises.’

Steel

Approx. 160 x 300 h. cm

The texture of the steel composition is polished to a highly reflective surface that recalls that metal finish that used to be fashionable as an industrial aesthetic of 80s interior design. The sculpture, however, is explicitly modernist in its composition. Firstly, in its traditional use of metal in presenting a pattern of lines in the formalist enjoyment of an abstract composition.

Image source: The Long History of Financial Boom-Bust Cycles in Iceland. Part I

The work is also a perversion of the idea of abstraction. Precisely because it is not abstract. It is literally a depiction of an underlying material reality through the device of pictorial representation – albeit a schematic one. One that evokes a tension between the seemingly rhythmic repetition of the crises depicted and a calculated utility implied in the kinds of graphs on which fiscal policies rely.