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The Sound of Money: "Economy Ballet" at Erste Campus, Vienna

"Das Ökonomieballett", Erste Campus, January 2020, Photo: Oliver Ottenschläger
Franz Erhard Walther, Thirteen Action Forms, 2015, Photo Steeve Beckouet
Franz Erhard Walther, Thirteen Action Forms, 2015, Photo Steeve Beckouet
Franz Erhard Walther, Thirteen Action Forms, 2015, Photo Steeve Beckouet
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A jangle, a rattle, a clatter. The first taste of the multi-sensory performance "Das Ökonomieballett" (The Economy Ballet), conceived by curator Pierre Bal-Blanc for the Erste Campus, reaches the ear: before the large crowd gathered on the ground floor of the spacious Erste Campus atrium can even lay eyes on the performers, they hear them walking along the galleries, shaking what will turn out to be metal cans filled with coins.

As more and more performers descend a flight of stairs and pour into the vast, half-lit space, deep, booming crescendos swell and ebb, sometimes stopping abruptly, with the clatter of coins filling the silence in between. This dramatic entrance is the first in a complex system of art-historical references on this carefully orchestrated evening: a nod to Marcel Duchamp’s 1912 painting "Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2".

In the hands of Pierre Bal-Blanc, the performance originally proposed by Franz Erhard Walther to mark the completion of his "Dreizehn Handlungsformen"—a project for the Erste Campus commissioned in 2015—turned into much more: a contemporary take on the 1924 Dadaist short film Ballet Mécanique from an economic perspective including an artistic collaboration between Walther and media artist Peter Kogler, soundtracked by Matthieu Saladin’s "Economic Score – The Canaletto View".

The "Dreizehn Handlungsformen" installed in this office building’s former smoking rooms showcase textile objects in Walther’s trademark style of wall coverings with anthropomorphic shapes, inviting the Erste Bank staff to engage with, wear, and thus activate them. For decades, Franz Erhard Walther has made participation the key concept of his artistic practice. It is through action—understood as active projection, even as imagination, but also as the tactile gesture of engagement—on the part of the audience that a space is defined and developed. As Joshua Mack put it in ArtReview: “None of his work makes sense unless understood through our sensation.”

With the "Economy Ballet", however, the audience is relegated to the role of the passive onlooker while 26 volunteering employees of Erste Group perform in their midst. Each performer is wearing—and thus activating—a piece by Franz Erhard Walther. Rendered in vivid colors like deep blue, rich oxblood, and bright orange, these stiff pieces seem less like clothing than like objects on the body. Some performers sport only a single sleeve over a smart casual outfit. Another performer halfway disappears into a cube-shape, while yet others don halved trouser legs or coats tied around the body, reminiscent of archaic aprons.

In the semidarkness of the atrium, Franz Erhard Walther’s trademark gaiety of colors recedes into an overall situation ("Gesamtsituation") entitled "RAUM 2020" that arises from Peter Kogler’s wall projections. Their flickering stripes and checkered patterns in stark black-and-white contrasts evoke the kinds of machinery used in early film, unmistakably alluding to the inspiration of the "Ballet Mécanique". This short film created by painter Fernand Léger, director and cinematographer Dudley Murphy, and composer George Antheil makes particularly strong use of the technical motif of rotation, such as by collaging legs or bottles into rotary movement.

Bal-Blanc’s choreography echoes these movements and knits them together with art-historical references. As the performers gather into a circle, they surround one female and one male performer, now naked, the only ones in the room who had already been naked save for Walther’s textile pieces. Remaining motionless amidst the group, they strike a pose—Man Ray’s vision of Adam and Eve, as captured by his 1924 photograph "Ciné-Sketch: Adam and Eve (Marcel Duchamp and Bronia Perlmutter)". And in a twist that seems just as loaded with ironic laconism—considering the location—as it is with mythical innuendo, the performers then empty their cans, tossing the coins onto the surrounded couple. The Greek myth of Danaë, impregnated by Zeus in the form of “golden rain,” instantly comes to mind—and in fact, it was the legend as rendered into poses by Titian and Gustav Klimt that inspired this choreography.

Rearranging themselves within the space, the performers now line up along the atrium’s curved wall, ridding themselves one by one of their textile pieces, which they carefully place on the floor in front of them. Before they begin putting them back on, there is a brief moment—just a sliver of time, really—that encompasses the entire notion of activation: the pieces turn back into lifeless objects as they lie on the floor, seeming like empty shells or cocoons left behind. The sheer size of the space seems to shrink these garments into tiny doll costumes that retain their shape, as if discarded after one has finished playing.

In a way similar to how the objects retain the potential of their activation, the musical score accompanying the choreography embodies the entire project’s economical dimension. It was based on the financial data of Erste Group’s exhibition budget for the Erste Campus’s art in architecture-project that Matthieu Saladin composed his "Economic Score". While the way that this piece sounds was determined by the available data (with each expense becoming a note), Saladin also chose to add a playful touch: drawing on the fact that some numbers remained hidden, he factored in moments of silence as an allusion to the bank’s confidential expenses. And just as it is with Franz Erhard Walther’s objects by themselves, these moments are not simply silent, but much rather loaded with potential.

Kathrin Heinrich

Kathrin Heinrich is an art historian. She lives and works in Vienna.

January 2020