Luke Bartels created the wood standard, a stack of pure wood, which has been fashioned to resemble bars of gold. He cleverly questions the manner of ascribing value to particular materials over others, in this case positing trees or wood as valuable as gold.
The Wood Standard is made from California bay laurel wood and the bars are priced by their weight and they fluctuate with the price of gold. The price on 3.9.12 was $564.88.
Luke Bartels is a furniture artisan who works primarily with locally salvaged and sustainably harvested hardwoods, so the challenge to create an art piece out of reclaimed wood wasn’t much of a stretch. Luke about this artwork: “Part of the concept of the project is pegging of the price of the bricks to the price of gold… which engages so many of the issues that I’m trying to bring into the piece; market value, commodity fetishism… The charlatanry involved in the trading markets and the green/eco revolution.”
All images © Luke Bartels – Website
