Santiago Montoya's Hokusai Wave reworks one of the most iconic images in art history, exploring how value - cultural, monetary or otherwise - surges, crests, and recedes like the wave itself. Montoya reconstructed the most famous image from Hokusai's woodblock series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji using his unique visual language of rolled bank notes from a myriad of international currencies - each note a tiny vessel of nationhood, economy, and history - painted with 24 karat gold leaf. By re-enshrining Hokusai's image in gold and paper currency nearly two centuries after its creation, Montoya honours its original cosmology. For Hokusai and millions of other Japanese Buddhists, Mount Fuji represents immortality and sacred, unchanging spiritual values amidst ephemeral worldly change.
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Montoya reconstructs Hokusai’s image using bills from a wide array of nations. The artist's trademark medium – rolled and painted paper money – derives its meaning from Montoya's cultural background. As a Colombian artist, Montoya has been exposed to extreme economic instability, experiencing firsthand a whole nation's erosion of trust in paper currency. During periods of insurgency in Colombia, bills are also often stamped and marked by guerilla and paramilitary groups, rendering them futile. By folding and painting money, Montoya explores alternative means by which one can devalue the paper bill. Through incorporating a multitude of national currencies in this work he also speaks to the globalised nature of the art world, the international dissemination of the image he's reconstructing, and the dichotomy between cultural and monetary value. It is particularly poignant to note Montoya’s use of paper money in this artwork given that Hokusai’s prints were originally sold for the same price as a bowl of noodles. Ultimately his use of medium here speaks to the instability of the global economy throughout space and time – the fragility of currency, despite its simultaneously enormous power.
Montoya’s embellishment of gold leaf in this work is a visual trademark of his, while also holding enormous contextual value. The use of gold leaf in Japan can be traced all the way to 300 CE, used to adorn pottery, jewellery and ceremonial items. By integrating gold leaf into the work Montoya pays tribute to Japan's enormous cultural heritage, despite the imperialist aspects and history of the work. The global dissemination of this work appeals to the artist – he is particularly motivated to illustrate how the perception of value changes across national borders and time. As for Hokusai’s print, the influence and impact of the work is seemingly timeless – Montoya contributes to a legacy of an image with hundreds of thousands of reproductions. However, the array of currencies used to rebuild Hokusai’s image have not survived the same glory. It seems that Montoya is illustrating the fragility of monetary value, overshadowed by the lasting impact of cultural value.
Montoya’s inspiration derives partly from Pop art, and this is visibly and conceptually manifested in Hokusai’s Wave. A central tenet of Pop art includes making art widely accessible to the general public, breaking down historically entrenched barriers between ‘high art’ and everyday life. By rebuilding such a widely circulated image, Montoya allows the public to recognise and connect with his work, challenging elitism in the sphere of the art world. This is a recognisable theme within the genre: pioneers of Pop art such as Andy Warhol used everyday images like Campbell’s soup cans, or globally recognised celebrities to reshape cultural attitudes and social prejudice.
Ultimately, Montoya’s pertinent use of materiality in Hokusai Wave demonstrates the ways in which we collectively assign value and significance to systems and materials, despite their power being faith-based and illusory. The artist reflects: ‘markets rise through confidence, desire, and collective momentum; they reach a crest at the moment when their power appears most irresistible; and then they fall.’ These metaphorical tides of value rise with confidence and fall with lack thereof. This reflects the world at large: the systems we assign power to falter and fail, economies ebb and flow, empires rise and fall. Nature is depicted in the print as dwarfing mankind, reminding us that amassing material wealth is futile. A message deeply synonymous with Montoya’s philosophy, this work beautifully fuses timeless messages about the transience of human life with the artist's contemporary, cutting-edge approach to style and materiality.
