kurimanzutto presents S-COOP by Minerva Cuevas.

S-COOP was a project carried out by Minerva Cuevas for The Street, a series of artistic interventions around Wenthworth Street which were organized throughout last year by the Whitechapel Gallery.

Minerva’s proposal consisted in creating a new coin: S-COOP, inspired in the exchange tokens designed by British cooperatives at the beginnings of last century (1900s). The coin was minted in the foundry of la Casa de Moneda de México in San Luis Potosí, and put into circulation by the traders of the Petticoat Lane Market in London, who used it as change, or it could also be acquired with 1.20 pounds.

This coin circulated for many months in east London. Those who obtained it could buy an ice-cream in Monochrome; an ice-cream store designed by the artist located inside this commercial area. The ice-cream had one particularity: all flavors were white, a delicious translation of the revolutionary concept of abstraction.  

This project recovers the story of social activism in the East End of London exhibiting a collection of tokens of different cooperatives that originated in the United Kingdom. S-COOP was a piece intended to reflect on the nature of the community questioning the value, the commercialization and the function of the power of capital in art and society. 

The project ends, finally, with the commercialization of a limited edition containing documents related to the project, a photographic archive, facsimiles and the S-COOP coin. This limited edition package will be exhibited the day in which the conversation with the artist is programmed.