Revolutions depart behind artifacts. In the summertime of 2011, a painter named Alex Schaefer arrange an easel on a sidewalk in Van Nuys, California, and commenced portray the Chase Bank department throughout the road. In his thoughts, the constructing was on hearth — flames pouring from the home windows, black smoke rising over the palm bushes, the Chase emblem nonetheless legible via the warmth. He labored en plein air, the way in which the Impressionists had labored the Seine and the hay fields, besides the topic was a department of the biggest financial institution in America three years after it had been bailed out with public cash. A passerby known as the police. When the paintings bought on eBay for $25,200 to a German collector, Schaefer did the one logical factor and painted extra.
The artworks gathered in Relics of a Revolution at Bitcoin 2026 hint a lineage of dissent that connects street-level protest to the delivery of Bitcoin itself — a Tokyo sidewalk within the snow with Kolin Burges, a Los Angeles overpass underneath wheat paste with Mear One, a botched police raid in Ohio answered with songs and a flag go well with with Afroman. Schaefer’s Banks on Fireplace work belong to that very same lineage, and so they arrive with an art-historical pedigree that sharpens the purpose. Artwork critics have drawn the apparent line to Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles County Museum on Fireplace (1965–68), the portray that put a cultural establishment up in flames and hung it again on the museum’s personal wall. Schaefer swapped the museum for the financial institution, the oil-crisis period for the bailout period, and took the portray out of the studio and onto the sidewalk in entrance of the constructing itself — a indisputable fact that earned him questioning by LAPD officers who needed to know if he was a terrorist planning to comply with via on his canvases. “Some might say the banks are the terrorists,” he advised them. In July 2012 he was arrested outdoors a downtown Chase department for chalking the phrase “Crooks” subsequent to the brand, and spent twelve hours in jail on a misdemeanor vandalism cost.
Born in Los Angeles in 1969 and skilled at ArtCenter School of Design in Pasadena, Schaefer spent eight years as a digital artist — together with on the unique Spyro the Dragon trilogy — earlier than leaving the display for the easel and returning to ArtCenter to show the basics of portray, drawing, and composition. Like Mear One, he spent years figuring out of downtown Los Angeles, a neighborhood that functioned as floor zero for a decade of American unrest — Occupy LA camped on the garden of Metropolis Corridor a couple of blocks from his studio, the 2012 chalk protests that swept throughout the nation had certainly one of their flashpoints outdoors a downtown Chase department, and the realm round fifth and San Julian stayed a visual stress check of each system the bailouts had been presupposed to have fastened.
The Banks on Fireplace collection started in 2009, within the quick wake of the monetary collapse itself. “All the problems in America,” he has mentioned, “to me seem to point to the same root problem. Which is: the money is bullshit.” The Bitcoin group discovered him rapidly, and for apparent causes. The Genesis Block’s embedded Instances headline — “Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” — is identical prognosis in textual content that Schaefer was making in oil, on the sidewalk, whereas the constructing nonetheless stood.
I sat down with Alex Schaefer forward of his panel at Bitcoin 2026 to speak about plein air protest, the 2008 crash, the structure of bailouts, and what it means to color a constructing on hearth whereas the constructing continues to be there.
BMAG: Alex, you began the Banks on Fireplace collection in 2009 — not in a studio, however on the sidewalk, en plein air, in entrance of the particular buildings. For individuals encountering this work for the primary time, are you able to set the scene? What was occurring within the nation if you first arrange an easel throughout the road from a Chase department, and what made the sidewalk the proper place to color it?
Alex: In 2009 I had been (and proceed to take pleasure in) “plein air” portray which implies engaged on location open air straight from life; it’s very a lot related to the French Impressionists and it’s a really satisfying factor to do. Since I used to be residing in LA on the time, my favourite motif to color was city panorama and I used to be typically arrange with an easel and artwork provides on the sidewalk so I used to be used to creating artwork in public. Additionally in 2009 I used to be beginning to actually take note of monetary information and commenced a studying course of about it that continues to today. On the time I slowly started to suppose that the 2008 FiNaNciAL cRiSiS!!1! and subsequent trillion greenback bailouts weren’t what we had been made to consider. Add to this a pal telling me a few present known as the Keiser Report. Now Max and Stacy, together with all types of reports and knowledge on YouTube, are educating me with wit and perception about what was precisely occurring. I may solely draw one conclusion: This was against the law spree and never solely had been the perpetrators getting away with it, they had been getting paid. Outrageous. AntiAmerican, AntiCapitalist, Anti-Legislation and Order. A pair years later and duly radicalized, I used to be in search of a method to categorical my outrage. I used to be plein air portray lots, particularly with a pal who lived in Van Nuys. In his neighborhood I noticed this Chase Bank that was once a Washington Mutual that was once a Dwelling Financial savings and Mortgage and it was this stunning Millard Sheets designed mid-century fashionable constructing. That was the attention chocolate falling into the peanut butter of my thoughts: I’m going to color en plein air this Chase financial institution just like the roof is on hearth. Someday later I took the next picture:
BMAG: There’s an art-historical line that retains getting drawn between your work and Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles County Museum on Fireplace — a portray that set a cultural establishment alight after which hung again on the partitions of the establishment itself. You swapped the museum for the financial institution, the oil-crisis period for the bailout period, and took the work out of the studio and onto the sidewalk. Whenever you take a look at that lineage, do you see your self as extending a dialog Ruscha began, or diagnosing one thing he couldn’t have seen but within the Sixties — the particular rot of a monetary system that now runs the tradition that used to run it? Is it Deja Vu yet again with the present Center East scenario?
Alex: I feel one thing that the 2 work share is that they had been born out of a way of concern. However completely different in that one is about monetary terrorism and the opposite about lack of institutional illustration for artists. Ruscha painted his piece from 1965 to 1968, which apparently was when the French had been placing great strain on the US greenback by swapping their paper {dollars} for precise gold, which on the time was an unimaginable discount in a rigged market. Everybody was feeling the inflation, I’m certain even Ed Ruscha, from silly overseas and home coverage authorities spending, the French knew why (Vietnam), and a pair years later Nixon closed the gold window, letting unfastened wanton cash creation on a scale by no means imagined. Mockingly this turned out to be a profit for the “Capital A” Artwork Market through the CIA flooding up to date American Artwork public sale homes with money selling this concept of American Exceptionalism; i.e., not solely did America beat you commies to the Moon, our artwork is healthier too (learn: costlier). 1973 was the well-known Bob Scull public sale of his up to date artwork assortment that broke all worth data on the time. The sport was on.
BMAG: The LAPD questioned you as a doable terror suspect whilst you had been portray, and in 2012 you had been arrested for chalking the phrase “Crooks” subsequent to a Chase emblem — twelve hours in jail on a misdemeanor vandalism cost. Mear was censored and almost cancelled. Kolin was advised by Mt. Gox that if he saved protesting everybody would lose their bitcoin. Afroman had seven deputies with assault rifles kick in his door. What did being handled as a menace by the state train you in regards to the paintings itself — and about what the establishments you had been portray had been truly afraid of?
Alex: The powers that be, the establishments, need the general public to be mad at one another. Image these hierarchy pyramid illustrations and on one degree is “The Public” and above them on the pyramid are layers like Police, the Justice System, Politicians, C-Suite Executives, Banks, Central Banks, Devil and so on. Each layer above The Public over centuries has created methods to exert energy over Us, for all types of causes however primarily as a result of they’re afraid of Us directing the sum of all our anger on the aforementioned higher layers. They use their favourite trick and divide The Public into completely different factions with either side getting their very own customized grievances and scapegoats. Then the mainstream media does its job of winding individuals up on each side and voila: anger and outrage aspect to aspect and Us towards one another, however none of that directed above. As quickly as somebody in The Public layer begins calling out an injustice in an higher layer, troubles will come to them. Everybody you talked about, Mear, Kolin, Afroman, 1st Modification auditors, tax protestors and so on., all know this. My expertise with this ongoing Burning Banks collection has taught me many issues through the years about artwork, the artwork world, the monetary world, Fact, Justice, the American Method and so on. Nice issues, scary issues, profound issues… However the very first thing it taught me is the facility of spectacle and that when the spirit strikes you powerfully to do one thing, although it might sound a bit bizarre or scary you gotta go along with it.
BMAG: You’ve mentioned, plainly, that “the money is bullshit” — that each one the disconnected issues in America level again to the identical root. How did you arrive at that prognosis, and if you first encountered bitcoin, did it really feel like affirmation of one thing you’d already been portray, or like a unique sort of reply to the identical query?
Alex: I feel I’d extra precisely say that “fiat” cash aka foreign money aka the federal reserve word, is bullshit. Fiat foreign money was invented centuries in the past to wage conflict and the US PetroDollar is not any completely different. Infinite conflict, wars of aggression, the Battle on medicine, the Battle on most cancers… you title it there’s a conflict occurring both for or towards it and on the finish of the day it’s all funded by the Federal Reserve. Each horrible concept put forth by our so-called leaders will get funded. It’s true: “The love of money is the root of all evil’ but in the case of the US Dollar, it’s actually the money itself not just the love of it. The way that it’s created out of thin air and the implications of that fundamentally shows nothing but utter disregard and disrespect for the value of human life and human labor. Despite that, civilization needs “money”. Good cash that’s. The social assemble that’s cash is older than capitalism, it’s frankly as outdated as society itself and is the means for advanced and specialised societies to type, develop and flourish. For millennia that perform was fulfilled by gold and silver, they possess the classical qualities of Sound Cash in that they’re scarce, fungible, transportable, divisible, sturdy, a unit of measurement and medium for alternate. When you settle for this as a truth, then you definitely study bitcoin, it slowly then all of the sudden dawns on an individual that it’s the biggest type that the idea of Cash has ever taken. And then you definitely begin to actually suppose that if we will repair the cash, we really can repair the world! Defund Evil!
BMAG: This exhibition known as Relics of a Revolution, and it places your work in dialog with Kolin’s Mt. Gox protest signal, Mear’s Occupy-era murals and wheatpaste protest posters, and Afroman’s flag go well with — alongside an authentic copy of The Instances from January 3, 2009, the newspaper Satoshi encoded into the Genesis Block. The greenback invoice works you’re exhibiting right here take a unique path to the identical thesis. What would you like somebody strolling via this exhibition to remove — particularly somebody who is aware of bitcoin as a worth ticker however has by no means considered it because the continuation of a struggle that artists, cypherpunks, and protestors have been in for many years?
Alex: Truthfully, as with all my work, I need individuals to be visually struck by one thing in the beginning… Whether or not it’s the paint floor, the colour, the distinction, the impact of sunshine, the imagery, simply be attention-grabbing to the eyes first, then the thoughts. I discover the low decision pixelated high quality of the Devaluation collection items to be fascinating to take a look at. There is an attention-grabbing interaction occurring between the attention and thoughts of the viewer; the portray is full however additionally it is “completed” within the viewer’s thoughts. The viewer offers extra to the picture by means of their creativeness than is definitely visually imparted by the portray itself. “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” Then one may query the subject material and the way it’s depicted with the idea of Devaluation. At what level can the portray develop into so pixelated that you could’t even make it out for what it’s anymore? Identical to at what level can the Greenback develop into so watered down and prolonged and pretended that it solely loses its “Tinkerbell Effect” and ceases to carry out it’s essential perform across the World. We might discover out.
That is Part IV of the Relics of a Revolution interview collection accompanying the Relics of a Revolution exhibition. Part I options Kolin Burges, Part II Mear One, Part III Afroman.
Repair the cash. Repair the world.
Clear and minimal: Schaefer will exhibit paintings on view at Bitcoin 2026, April 27–29, at The Venetian Resort, Las Vegas, and can seem on a talking panel moderated by Dennis Koch titled “Looking at Bitcoin Art Through a Protest Lens” alongside Kolin Burges and Mear One. Bid on Schaefer’s work HERE.
The Bitcoin Museum & Artwork Gallery (BMAG) is the curatorial and cultural programming division of BTC Inc and the Bitcoin Convention. Since 2019, the BMAG convention artwork gallery has facilitated greater than 120 BTC in artwork and collectible gross sales. Be taught extra about BMAG at museum.b.tc. Observe BMAG on twitter @BMAG_HQ.
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