Maura Brewer Turns Money Laundering into Art

As an artist and academic, I’ve spent a lot of time considering what the point of making art is, and arguing with friends and colleagues about it. All the common refrains in this debate—that art is about beauty, cultural visibility, etc.—ring hollow against the overwhelming fact central to Maura Brewer’s practice: that art is, perhaps more than anything else, a tool for money laundering.Brewer, who is based in Los Angeles, works primarily in video, creating essayistic com