-Robert E. Lee- still bank c. 1955

This “Robert E. Lee Still Bank” was created by Banthrico Inc. Here is the general, the infamous Confederate General. But he is also a bank, a place to store money. You know, thinking about this object, I wonder: what was it like to be Banthrico, Inc.? Probably they were not thinking about history at all, and just cranking this thing out for maximum distribution, right? And probably people had it on their mantelpiece – or kids’ rooms, filled with coins. There’s something very direct about folk art, or any commercial art. It’s like it has a job to do, and that job takes precedence over any art gestures. This kind of work always reminds me that we are always looking at history from a certain point of view. I like to think of artists working across time, changing each other's ideas of what art can be. And the truth is, there are no fixed meanings.