Mark Wagner

Mark Wagner has spent years dissecting the American dollar, transforming it from a symbol of trust and power into a material for questioning those very ideas. In his work for Phantom Tigers and Parallel Papers, that critique takes an explicit, even humorous form: George Washington sits at a desk, speech bubble in hand, asking simply—”America What The Fuck?” Rendered entirely from sliced and recomposed U.S. banknotes, the piece is both surgical and satirical. Every element—the engraved borders, the serial numbers, the fragments of Washington’s own portrait—becomes part of a visual language turned against itself. The precision of the cut amplifies the absurdity of the message: authority literally speaking back to its creators. The phrase, translated into nine languages, stretches the image’s meaning beyond national borders. Wagner’s collage becomes a multilingual echo of disbelief, a global response to a fractured present. It’s an acrobatic gesture in both form and intent: turning limited material into complex critique, elegance into protest.