Jure Kastelic | Galileo’s middle finger

 

Throughout history, the concept of money has evolved from shells, beads, and precious metals to paper and fiat money backed by oil exports, military power, and political influence. Money has increasingly become a politicized tool, detached from its true purpose as a measure of energy. The global trends of broken money are evident today.

Afghani women face the hurdle of requiring male consent to access banking, while Ukrainian refugees encounter challenges in accessing EU banks. Former French colonies in Africa continue to bear the burden of excessive fees, depleting their paper currencies and enriching French coffers with African gold. Hyperinflation in Argentina, Turkey, and Venezuela benefits the asset-rich elite at the expense of the majority’s purchasing power, as does in financially privileged regions such as G7 that are experiencing double-digit inflation resulting in an unprecedented wealth transfer from the already impoverished to the already affluent.

The question of what is money and what it represents, is central to Kastelic’s research. That is especially the less glamorous side including its origin, issuance, governance and the seemingly related global rising inequality, declining purchasing power and the fictional trickle-down-economy.

The paintings in the exhibition were all painted in Venice. Much of the inspiration comes from the book “Bitcoin is Venice” (2022) by Allen Farrington, that paints the Venetians as innovators who created a fertile ground for human flourishing and transitioned from feudalism before anyone else in history. The paintings in the exhibition depict mavericks, gatekeepers, honey badgers and other archetypes coming from myths, emergent monetary technologies and counterculture. In the quest for new perspectives, the painting process includes the latest open source AI image generator tools. Blending different digital sources such as images found online, photographs of previous work, scans from history books, and memes with a new visual language that is both playful and thought-provoking. The AI image generator retains the subject from one image and the colour palette from the other, following the artist’s instructions. The resulting digital image is then rendered on canvas with a focus on colour alterations and blending.

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Jure Kastelic (b.1992, Slovenia) works and lives between London and Italy.
In 2019 he was selected by Zabludowicz Collection for the Testing Ground Masterclass and in 2020-21 he won residencies at Platform Southwark, London and TaC in Tuscany. Kastelic’s works have been exhibited internationally including at: UGM Museum, Maribor (2023); Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts (2021); Showroom Fabio Gatto and Salotto Studio, Milan (2021); White Crypt, London (2020); Niagara Falls Project, Brighton (2019); The Chopping Block Gallery, London (2019); Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art MNHA, Luxembourg (2017); Bozidar Jakac Art Museum and at Photon Centre
for Contemporary Photography, Slovenia (both 2016). Works by Kastelic are included in the collections of the Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art, Luxembourg; Arendt Medernach, Luxembourg; Herbert Smith Freehills, London; and private collections in London, New York, Ljubljana, Los Angeles, Milan, Venice. His work has been published in Le Monde, Vogue, The Guardian, Fast Company among others.

Galileo’s middle finger

Jure Kastelic
Exhibition dates 16-30 September
Monday – Friday open by appointment. Saturday and Sunday 12-6 pm
9 French Place, London E1 6JB