Mona Lisa (La Gioconda)

Leonardo da Vinci, ca 1503-06, oil on wood panel. Here as 40 copys in a second hand store in Stockholm.

Even though the Mona Lisa is a nice painting, it might be difficult to understand how this little portrait of an unknown woman has become so famous. In our time, where marketing creates the product, we ask ourselves the question of how one goes about creating such a trademark; wherein lies the actual value?
She first became famous after being stolen from the French in 1911 by a somewhat confused Italian painter. Vincenzo Perruggia felt that she should be in her homeland of Italy. She was found two years later, and since then has been copied and spread over the entire world, like counterfeit money. In the exhibition Money, we show how the original was received in the United States on her first trip over to the New World, surrounded by a massive media presence. The painting was met by huge crowds, as if it were a film star. The copies in different sizes shown in Money have been collected from Stockholm city shelters. They bear witness to the cult around the Mona Lisa, a cult which has several possible explanations. Perhaps it is because the picture is an effective canvas on which to project our own dreams. Because she has such a secretive smile, stubbornly unidentifiable and therefore so easy to recognise. Or perhaps it is as Leonardo himself said: “Can’t you understand that of all the beautiful things in the world, it is a pretty face which makes people stop and take notice, and not the expensive trappings?”

Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519 Italy. Superfamous artist, engineer, inventor, and philosopher.

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