Dan Tague (American, b. 1974)

Archival inkjet print on rag paper

Edition 1 of 5

Measurements:
Framed: 43.5 x 58 inches (110.49 x 147.32 cm.)

Biography:
Dan Tague has an MFA in Studio Arts from The University of New Orleans, and is a multi-media artist, curator, and activist whose work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. He is the recipient of several awards and residencies including grants from The Joan Mitchell Foundation and Pollock Krasner Foundation, and has been an artist-in-residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the La Napoule Art Foundation in France.

Dan Tague’s work is multi-faceted. He is well-known for his dollar bill works that are a hybrid of sculpture, photography and political statements. Tague often addresses the issues of our day by rendering visual equivalents by the most powerful means necessary. Installations, photography and artistic activism are his means of confronting and responding to the concerns of today’s world.

Tague’s work has been exhibited across the US including Exit Art, DUMBO Arts Center, Frederieke Taylor, LMCC, Bronx River Arts Center and Cuchifritos in New York; The Soap Factory in Minneapolis; Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University; Florida Atlantic University and Gallery Camino Real in Florida and the Southeastern Biennial at SECCA in North Carolina.

Tague’s work is currently on exhibit at Ballroom Marfa (MARFA, TX) and recently showed at the VOLTA NY art fair in New York. Dan Tague is one of the first artists chosen for Prospect.2 Biennial that opens in November 2011 where he will present a major installation addressing corporate America and the political feuds that tie up our government.

Tague’s work is in numerous public and private collections including The Whitney Museum of American Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, The Sanam Vaziri Quraishi Foundation, collector Beth Rudin DeWoody, curator Dan Cameron and The Louisiana State Museum.

Dan Tague lives and works in New Orleans, LA.

Artist Statement

The appeal and power of money are the issues at the core of this series. In a capitalist society cash rules everything. Society teaches us that you can buy love, happiness, and status through possessions. You can even right wrongs by taking away a bit of someone’s happiness through fines and lawsuits. Politicians buy votes through claims of lowering taxes, in other words letting us hold on to a little more status…upper, lower, upper-lower class. Income tax, sales tax, and property tax all fund the war on terror, war on drugs, war on poverty, war on morality, etc. In fact our consumer pursuit of happiness is the cause and solution for all of these wars.

Military aggression costs billions of dollars and often leads to economic strain resulting in job loss, decline in education, and further restrictions in medical resources for citizens. In this light some of our basic freedoms are compromised to protect our more capitalist interests. Charles Sumner adds, “Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace.” The cost of war has created an internal war on our economy, where the generals are CEOs and the tanks are toxic assets. This is a costly war under the camouflage of billion dollar bailouts. The only question now is where do we go from here.

—Dan Tague

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

—Dwight Eisenhower

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