Just another “MONA LISA”
I came upon this painting in my new beautiful apartment in Rome and even with my professional background of art I ignored it for a few months and when I started exploring the content in the apartment, this particular painting caught my eye. I thought what is the meaning of this as it was just another Mona Lisa but with modification to it. With the help of friends who visited the apartment I came to know the whole story behind it so we looked for artists inspiration and I started my research to figure out the basic nature of it. The first word on the top is the federal reserve note from where I got to know the relationship with currency and I got more curious to what is the relationship between currency and Mona Lisa. This is “Jean Michel Basquait” painting of Mona Lisa where he converted it into a currency for the world by making it as a legal tender for the exchange of money between governments. It focuses on the economy of the world and also the standing of artists in this economy itself.
My interpretation of it though was rather different in the start as Mona Lisa was filled with just visible crayon strokes and with the visible bearded as it has hatred behind it. A blend of very basic colors and anatomically very vague notion of Mona Lisa also pointed me to make this interpretation. The artist somehow wants the world to see the Mona Lisa but in a satirical manner. I thought after reading the original inspiration story as to it piercing through beyond the explanation as he thought both the federal reserve note and Mona Lisa was overrated and it affected other artists to a point where they have to prove themselves to the world by only their work. The second interpretation that I came up with was that art has always been described by the viewers perspective that they want to see. By putting art in the lens of money puts it under a hard pressure where artists think about selling it first and then mold it according to an audience. It can also be a projection of the modern world where everything is going to mass production to ruin the originality in the form of impressing the audience for money.
