My print Diminishing Returns exhibited in New Prints 2001/Autumn, is part of an ongoing body of work using U.S. currency that deals with art and value. For the series Counterfeit I selected well-known 20th century artists, such as Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol, and re-made their "signature" works by sewing together U.S. currency. Counterfeit refers to my plagiarism of these masterpieces as well as the conditional nature of the value of art and money. I started that work because as an artist and a teacher, I am struck by how art is almost always discussed in terms of its monetary value rather than its historical, political, or social significance.

Biography

Born in San Francisco, Beldner received a B.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute and an M.F.A. from Mills College in Oakland, California. Currently, Beldner is an assistant professor of art at Saint Mary's College, Moraga, CA.

His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows nationally and internationally and is represented in many public and private collections including the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA; Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA; the San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; and the Federal Reserve Board, Washington DC.

Beldner has received numerous awards and fellowships and his work has been reviewed in publications such as Arte, Art On Paper, Wired, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice, the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times.

Recently, Beldner's work was shown in Living With Duchamp, Tang Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY; Argent et Valeur, Le Dernier Tabou, Exposition Nationale Suisse, Biel-Bienne, Switzerland; Pop Rocks, Caren Golden Fine Art, New York, NY; and in the traveling exhibition, Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age.