DEFACED AT THE FIZWILLIAM MUSEUM

Defaced is an exhibition of a lifetime. Flamboyant and philosophical, daring and overdue. Begun pre-pandemic, it is  worth the wait.  Society concerned with survival and more acutely than ever, aware of money and its world wide significance. Defaced Money , Conflict and Protest aimst at the centre of what intrigues us right now.

Splendidly sign-posted across the Neo Classical Columns of the august frontage of the Fitzwilliam, this extraordinary exhibition deserves detailed attention. What other show can claim to feature Harry and Megan on a bank note alongside the desperate attempts of prisoners of war to smuggle messages from their confinement?

The show uses currency to put some puzzling questions, from the place of currency in the history of ideas, to its use in the spread of protest and defiance over the past two hundred years. There are many minds behind this labyrinth of interlocked intriguing material but it iis Curator Richard Kelleher  who has put his own lucid stamp all over the exhibition and the companion book— as a writer  as well as researcher. “Next to language, money is the most important medium through which a modern society communicates’” he writes, and in the course of the exhibition you begin to realise the enormity - as well as the mundanity - of its message.

Contemporary Commentary on a defaced bank note

For instance the banknotes and coins on display in the exhibition have extraordinary resonance . Many originated in times of turmoil, revolutions and revolts most of us have heard of, and some surprises. Who. knew the people of Limerick in Ireland had a two week stand off with the might of the British Army  during the Irish War of Independence . The British declared Limerick a Special Military Area with permit-controlled access and the Limerick Trades and Labour Council called a general strike and printed paper notes in defiance. ‘Against Brtiish Militarism’ they proclaimed, their currency would work against the blockade. This little known episode is contrasted with the contemporary ASPEN - a card issued by the British Government. This Asylum Support Enablemnent Card is for people shoe applications are being processed and is worth £40.85 a week. Opponents say is exists  to try and track and indeed control immigrants. Banknotes of revolt, coins of dissent - defaced coins with a message were an excellent method of communicating a secret or dangerous message across a wide range of the population.

Gilray satire on Money the Crown and Revolution

George Cruikshank hangings

In 1815 the celebrated satirist George Cruikshank turned his talent to a new form of protest. At the end of his life he reckoned it was his best work. It was a bank note, not unlike the newly issued government tender designed to replace golden guineas. But the launch of paper money had gone catastrophically wrong for many people.  Counterfeit currency became rife and the the authorities cracked down. Just to be found with a carefully faked note in your hands carried - a death sentence. Curator of the Fitzwilliam’s new show, Defaced, Richard Kelleher painfully explained. They hanged people on the slightest suspicion of involvement. Yet the records show most were entirely innocent, a pastry chef, a child, a night-watchman, had no idea what it all meant. Cruikshank’s response resonated throughout the country in the form of this painful detailed ‘banknote’.

Currency caught up in war, in prison and in poverty make this show so radical

Jesus I’m Skint - an artist’s view of cash

Stories galore puncture the long history of coinage and banknote currency . But the exhibition does not limit itself to this strand of evidence. One entire gallery contains a stunning work of art in its own right, of a van, stuffed with notes from recovered debt receipts, astonishingly enough, exploded on land in front of the City of London , as a protest agains unpayable pay day debt. An in-house film explains how an action group in Walhamstow  wittily calling itself HSCB - Hoe Street Community Bank - sold artistic takes on banknotes to fund their aim of paying off these debts. The explosion was the stunt to mark their success. Remarkable in the film to see an interview with a Judge Instiitute professor who addresses the curse of debt - and the ease with which it could, with collective action, be paid off.

Exhibtions do not come more stimulating relevant and radical than this one. Below two instances of currency manipulation - a defaced coin from the reign of Queen Victoria and a tenner enhanced and transformed with an image of Harry - a symbol possibly of someone who has been defrocked from the Line of HRHs - there is a Megan one too. The nuances between communication , protest and publicity are all here . As is the wider role of currency change in history. The French Revolution and the American War of Independence were in fact dependent themselves on the funding raised from newly contrived printed money, a world away from the hard economics of gold.

Let your mind absorb the immensity of this quirky bold and disparate exhibition in all its breadth and significance and you will go home with the desire to come again and work out what it’s really all about, all over again.

Victoria Defaced, a typical way of spreading dissent by coinage

Social comment - Harry on a Tenner