Ted Stanke: that bar in Brooklyn: Insert Coins Press Start

When I first moved to NYC in the summer of 2004, I had lots of huge sculptures from Gradschool. I quickly realized that moving anything large in the city is a major ordeal, so I looked for safe, public places to store my sculptures.

Responding to a Craigslist ad, I scheduled a meeting at a brand-new space in East Williamsburg called "Stain". After a bit of discussion with the proprietor, an arrangement was made to hang some work indefintely. Over the next several years, almost everybody went to this place at least once, hence the majority of the general public in NYC pretty much knows my art.

The Nickel sculpture from my coin series went up on the wall and became a fixture. In the backyard I placed the Quarter from the same series. The funny thing is, the sculpture was so large that it took a bit of effort to get it through the door into the backyard, including removing the top of the door frame, using a giant lever, and enlisting the manpower of a group of gypsies who were scheduled to perform some kind of circus act later that evening. It was like a coin inserted into a video game, stuck inside forever, exchanged for a chance to play the game of being an artist in NYC.

A year ago, when I removed the Nickel sculpture from the main space, people were stunned to see it suddenly disappear. Constantly, they wonder what happened to it. I suppose they figure it was sold to a bank. My current exhibition consists of a number of mosaics made from chopped up coins, army toys, and matchbox vehicles. The general dychotomy centers on the switch from previous to current administration.

Monetary developments have been carefully documented for those from the future.

When obsessing on coins, one evaluates the worth on a basic set of criteria. A tarnished coin has a substantially diminished value to a collector.

As the Earth stands poised on the abyss created by a vast, inevitable economic collapse, I find it only fitting to return to the place where so many people saw a great sculpture from my past with a recent body of disintegrated, fragmented, explorations using the identical subject matter from the inside out...

Life comes full circle, whether we like it or not. The leading cause of death is birth.

Corrosion and rust affect metal the same way as greed and inefficiency made untold, untraceable thousands of billions of dollars disintegrate and disappear, in the passing of a single season.