Paintings on pesos illustrate Argentina's currency and inflation woes
The rapid depreciation of the Argentine currency and one of the world’s highest inflation rates has made it difficult for Argentines to make ends meet
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — A jaguar lies beside George Washington. The United States’ first president holds a rifle with one hand as he rests the other on the dead Argentine predator.
The backdrop is a U.S. dollar and an Argentine 500-peso note joined like a book, a clear allusion to the rapid depreciation of the local currency, the peso. That has made it difficult for Argentines to make ends meet. The peso has depreciated around 60% compared to the U.S. dollar over the past year. It has occurred in parallel to one of the world’s highest inflation rates. Together, the economic travails have have bolstered an anti-establishment candidate who admires former President Donald Trump.
As millions of Argentines express dismay and anger, a group of artists is seeking to show the economic damage the best way they know how, with art. And as they express themselves, the artwork increases the value of the increasingly worthless bills they use as material.
It's one of the starkest illustrations of how runaway inflation has taken its toll and is changing habits; from middle-class women giving up beauty-parlor visits to families buying secondhand clothes. Argentines with extra cash buy stockpiles of things they need, knowing prices are certain to rise next month.
The runaway inflation conversely means restaurants in the capital are packed, because there's no point in saving when a paycheck loses purchasing power every month.
Artist Sergio Díaz and other Argentine artists' Money Art movement uses moderately priced brushes and acrylics to paint banknotes of 10, 20, 100, or 1,000 pesos and
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