Extraordinary is the glass object by the artist Dora Tass, who was born in Rome and works there as well as in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. Unlike some of the light objects in the collection of the Haupt Collection, which specializes in art on the subject of money – for example, by Mathieu Mercier, Sergej Alexander Dott, and Virginie Mossé – the effect of this holographic light artwork unfolds in active use.
At first glance, Holo$ looks (only) like a drawing on a dark background under extremely thick glazing. However, this impression lasts only until light rays from a spotlight fall on the wall-hanging object from above at an angle and bring its surface to actual life. The initially restrained colorfulness now unfolds in intense brilliance and luminosity. Depending on the viewer’s angle of vision, the collage-like elements – including, significantly, a torn $1 bill – emerge more or less far from the surface into the room and open up the third dimension.
The secret lies in the glass plate in front of them, which is a generous 1 cm thick.
This impression becomes even more perceptible when the viewer finds the work unlit, interactively uses the quasi-staff flashlight belonging to the work – which certainly corresponds to the artist’s intentions – and through the variation of lighting and viewing angle, as it were, puts the objects spatially ‘in motion’.

In collaboration with the American artist August Muth, a protagonist of modern holographic light art (who in his own work, however, is emphatically abstract), Dora Tass has created a series of analog
Dora Tass has realized a series of analog holographic light works since 2006, including the Typewriter subjects represented in exhibitions – first in the Italian pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale – and at auctions, as well as several other works on the theme of money.

by Hermann Büchner, Berlin