Daily Pic: A billboard piece titled “The First $100,000 I Ever Made”. It’s a new work by John Baldessari that will live beside the High Line park in New York for the rest of this month. Baldessari doesn’t spell out what it means, but gives some facts about its subject: For three weeks during the Great Depression, the government circulated these high-denomination bills among the country’s Federal Reserve Banks.

Is someone’s “first $100,000” a little money, or a lot? Is this like when a greasy spoon sticks up the first dollar bill that comes in? Is it a glancing comment on the sorry state of the world’s economy – or on the inflated state of the art market? Baldessari has hoisted a giant piece of currency high above the world’s largest concentration of art dealers, who have their galleries to either side of the High Line, so it seems likely that he’s saying something about them.

The Daily Pic, along with more global art news, can also be found on the  Art Beast page at TheDailyBeast.com.