C.K. Wilde
B. 1972
American
Artist C.K. Wilde started creating collages after seeing another Cultural Currency artist, Marshall Weber’s, collages in 1990. The elegant collages of Walter Hamaday also inspired Wilde to engage in collage as a serious artistic practice. Wilde’s collages reference subjects ranging from space exploration to mythology, religion, slavery, ecology, the history of warfare, the history of money, and art history. He often works with currency from all over the world from various eras, intertwining and reworking the system of capitalism and the propaganda that banknotes represent. To Wilde, cutting up money is his interpretation of ending the agreement with capitalism. It is a transgressive act, a disruption of the power narrative, and collage is a way to take a “critical stance through the reconfiguration of currency and its adjutant symbols of power,” he states. The underpinnings of his imagery often present a social or political commentary that is complex in layers like his material.
Collage as a medium also offers a unique transparency unlike any other medium: the process of making the image is immediately conjured upon viewing the image. The materials coupled with the technique resonate with viewers as both familiar and awe-inspiring. A dialogue, if not an open invitation between artist and viewer, is captured.
Wilde recognizes that his work thrives in a “wild thicket of ironies,” as he states, “I am a maker of luxury goods that critique the system, which allows for those goods to be consumed. The painstaking collage work that I do is my life’s blood manifest, yet for some, it is just like a car, watch, or vacation home in that it is just another symbol of accrued wealth and power.” In essence, the relationship between the artist and patron is symbiotic. Despite this codependency, Wilde still finds pleasure in knowing that his currency collages present subversive messages using the wealthy’s own “tools”… currency.
C.K. Wilde was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin, where he lives and works today. At an early age, his proclivities for art-making were encouraged and enthusiastically supported. After attending The George School, a Quaker boarding school, he studied Philosophy and Art at the University of Wisconsin. In 1993, he founded Artichoke Yink Press, which has published over 125 titles with many artists and writers. Wilde moved to New York City to teach collage and book arts at The Pratt Institute, The Cooper Union, and The Center for the Book Arts. In 1998, Wilde co-founded The Booklyn Artists Alliance in Brooklyn, New York. Wilde is represented by Rosamund Felsen Gallery in Los Angeles. His work can be found in over 70 collections worldwide, including The Getty, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA NYC and SF, New York Public Library, and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt.
