Near the Liberty Memorial in KCMO stands a rather larger brazen statement entitled the IOU/USA. This temporary monument in Memorial Hill Park was designed by John Salvest and stands nearly seven-stories tall until October 16, 2011.
IOU/USA is built with 105 multi-colored steel shipping containers stacked seven high and fifteen across. It took a year for the artist and others to conceive and gain permission to build this testimonial to a diverse political and financial era in our country’s history.
Interestingly enough, the large white letters, IOU, that face the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City were not accidental.
“While some may interpret its site and orientation in proximity to the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank as a direct critique aimed at the activities of the central bank,” stated a brochure about the monument. “Others may view the project as a cathartic response- perhaps defiant, perhaps submissive-to the stresses of mounting personal debt which millions of us know intimately.”
Nevertheless, an official guard for the monument said it was ironic that the IOU should face the alleged CEOs’ offices at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and that would be the first thing they would see each morning reporting for work.
“IOU/USA evokes pressing questions about the future, but its haunting architecture of emptied-out cargo containers also summons the uncanny of the recent past,” stated the brochure for the monument. “The advent of the humble steel shipping container as an instrument of global trade and personal accumulation has enabled us to practice this faith with extraordinary fervor-beginning early in life with disposable plastic sippy cups, and ending, for some, with discount caskets shipped from China.”
This brazen not-too-subtle statement is a reminder for us all that we need to take a more active role in our country’s financial security.
To learn more about IOU/USA www.grandarts.com.
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