Rose Salane

64,000 Attempts at Circulation, 2022

at the Whitney Biennial: Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2022

My investigations into loss and growth in the urban environment come from looking closely at residual objects from both intimate and public contexts. These are items that were collected by an individual or gathered according to an institutional protocol—a batch of unclaimed rings being auctioned by a mass transit system, surplus inventory sourced from a shuttered department store, or the lost archive of a municipal library. I find the objects in their final stages of use, often coming from businesses or other organizations undergoing economic restructuring, or from individuals who are seeking to recoup their collection’s monetary value or simply letting things go because time has passed. In these serendipitous findings and receivings, I think about how these objects might have resided in the lives of their beholders.

Rose Salane, 64,000 Attempts at Circulation, 2022. “Slugs” (counterfeit currency used to trick coin-operated devices) acquired from a New York City MTA asset-recovery auction installed upon patinated steel tables; screen prints on archival paper, framed. Installation View, Whitney Biennial: Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2022. Image © Rose Salane 2022, courtesy the artist; Carlos/Ishikawa, London; and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Photographed by: American Art Catalogues.

For the Biennial, I’m working with “slugs,” counterfeit currency used to trick coin-operated devices. I acquired sixty-four thousand of them from a New York Metropolitan Transit Authority asset-recovery auction. The lot I acquired contained a variety of tokens that mimic the shape and weight of legal tender. Each of these were used by commuters to pay for bus fares from 2017 to 2019.

[Excerpt] Salane discusses her practice for the Art21 series New York Close Up, 2022.

Click here to watch the full feature: Rose Salane's Lost & Found. © Art21, Inc. 2022.

Rose Salane, 64,000 Attempts at Circulation, 2022. “Slugs” (counterfeit currency used to trick coin-operated devices) acquired from a New York City MTA asset-recovery auction installed upon patinated steel tables; screen prints on archival paper, framed. Installation View, Whitney Biennial: Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2022. Image © Rose Salane 2022, courtesy the artist; Carlos/Ishikawa, London; and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Photographed by: American Art Catalogues.

In this installation, the coins are arranged according to a method of classification that reflects the five distinct categories which kept appearing across the contents I acquired.

Chance: Arcade and casino tokens.

Faith: Religious keepsakes and prayer tokens.

Blank: batteries, washers and hardware.

Imitation: Plastic play money and counterfeit coins

Place: Destinations, commemorations and tokens for access.

None of these possess monetary value, but they manage to store traces of the beliefs and experiences of the people who used them and the sites familiar to them.

[Detail Views] Rose Salane, 64,000 Attempts at Circulation, 2022. Images © Rose Salane 2022, courtesy the artist; Carlos/Ishikawa, London; and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Photographed by: American Art Catalogues.

I am deeply interested in objects I have encountered as systemized by-products of the daily routines and rituals of an anonymous public. The thousands of slugs are artifacts of the moment an individual entered the transit system and symbolize the way one might need to outwit such a system just to get by. Each “coin” leads to a number of nuanced discoveries about its histories. The separation of the object from its owner stems from financial necessity, and the narratives endorsed by their collectors cite truths, loss, and regeneration as experienced in one’s life.

[Detail View] Rose Salane, 64,000 Attempts at Circulation, 2022. Image © Rose Salane 2022, courtesy the artist; Carlos/Ishikawa, London; and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Photographed by: American Art Catalogues.

Cities unevenly attempt to fulfil the collective needs of their occupants, presenting them with circumstances that require constant negotiation. Exchange plays continuously on loop, and unknown variables become foundational elements of transactions. When looking closely at these item sets and the forces that shape their assembly, elements of larger entities emerge, revealing their influence on relationships and personal experiences.

I examine these relationships and exchanges against the background of urban infrastructures, embracing the texture of complexities measured within a life lived.

Rose Salane, 64,000 Attempts at Circulation, 2022. “Slugs” (counterfeit currency used to trick coin-operated devices) acquired from a New York City MTA asset-recovery auction installed upon patinated steel tables; screen prints on archival paper, framed. Installation View, Whitney Biennial: Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2022. Image © Rose Salane 2022, courtesy the artist; Carlos/Ishikawa, London; and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Photographed by: Noah Therrien, Sanden Wolff.

Major solo presentations of Salane’s work have been held at the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson, New York (2021); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2019); amongst others. Salane was featured in the New Museum Triennial: Soft Water and Hard Stone, New York (2021-2022) and this work is currently on view in the Whitney Biennial: Quiet as It’s Kept, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2022).