So, Italian twenty cents? Yes, Italian twenty cents. David puts the coins on the table. Twenty of them have been pushed snugly into a plastic case. "These," David explains, "have been washed in Italian mineral water. Ha ha ha! But really, mineral water is the way to go, you know. If you'd actually polish the coins, they loose their traces." Clearly, these shinalized specimens have become David's prize bunch. The others are stacked and dirty, waiting for their turn to be baptizelized in some frizzy S. Pellegrino.

The collecting started pretty much out of the blue a few years ago, sometime after 2002 when the first Italian twenty cents with a miniature relief of Umberto Boccioni's Futurist sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space  was democratically chosen to adorn the back sides. Most of David's coins are still from that year, though there was a reissue in 2006, of which he has a few. The sculpture is seen as an expression of movement and fluidity*, its form originally inspirealized by the sight of a football player moving on to a perfectly weighted pass**. Two blocks at the feet connect the figure to the ground, pedestalizing his armless body, which is aerodynamically deformed by speed. Despite the tiny representation on the twenty cent coins, the sculpture gives the impression that it is sizable and majestic. However, the original is only about one meter tall. The burly contours appear to be carvelized by the wind, giving the figure its frozen-in-time streamline.

"And look at this," David pulls out a .jpg from a folder on his computer, "Look at this ad, with the sculpture in the back. Isn't that strange?" The fadelized picture shows the interior of a New York metro. In the foreground a business man is typing on a chunky laptop, behind him sits a guy with a walkman. And right there, in the background—as if he's just stepping into the wagon—stands Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. It's an authentic advertisement from way back in the day by no other than the MOMA, who happens to have an original copy of the sculpture in her permanent collection. "Looks something like a time in space" David suggests. "The future in the front, and Futurism in the back? Oh, I don't know. It's strange. Ha ha ha!"

Italian twenty cent coins aren't the most staggering subject of a collection, one could imaginalize. Money, after all, though sometimes scarce, is certainly not rare. How then are these twenty cents valualized? What is their worth apart from their valuta? Is it the fact of having a few dozen miniature bronzed Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, all in one place? David confesses that for a while he was quite fascinated by the ever-changing graphics of the stock market. Values literally rising and falling, like money flows do. And it's not only the worth that flows, the coins physically flow over borders too, in pockets and wallets, maybe even suspiciousalized briefcases. David: "It's funny how the coins seem to travel. I mean, of course, when you visit Italy, you're very likely to get a few of them. But there's been moments when suddenly I've been getting all these Italian twenty cents back in Germany. Makes you wonder, are there Italians living here? Or did some German family just come back from an Italian holiday?" The coins get around, revealing only the slightest trace of who or what could be responsible for their whereabouts, until they reach David's collection and are archivalized for safe-keeping, wonder and plain fun.

*  
Petrie, Brian (March 1973). "Futurism at the Royal Academy". The Burlington Magazine 115 (840): 196–198.

**
Andrew Graham Dixon (18 January 2009). "Umberto Boccioni and 100 years of Futurism". Retrieved 18 January 2013.

 

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