BY STEVE LOPEZ

In "Confederate Currency: The Color of Money," at the Avery Research Center in Charleston, an African-American artist named John W. Jones took the romanticized slave-labor scenes from Confederate currency and reproduced them in oil paintings paired with the bills. The effect is to punctuate the exploitation of blacks for profit. One scene depicts a sun-lit goddess of good fortune in repose, counting her gold as slaves toil in the fields behind her.