Collection

In the film Arbeit, Duncan Campbell scrutinises the views of German economist Hans Tietmeyer, a financial expert and politician who greatly influenced the introduction of a common European currency. Using old newsreel footage, archive photographs, adverts, and the narrator’s voice, the artist builds up a story which reveals unexpected links between people, theories and anecdotes, while attempting get to the source of the current economic crisis. Even though Tietmeyer has constantly been a member of powerful international bodies over the last twenty years, Campbell deliberately makes no direct present-day references, as if Tietmeyer were a figure from the distant past. The work also reflects on how it is impossible to portray the past and historical narrative objectively, a typical feature in Campbell’s art.