Monarchs & Men

We follow the character Arthur Ashenking, protagonist of the film “The Anarchist Banker” (2010), in an adaptation of the imaginary dialogue between Count Leon Tolstoj and John Davison Rockefeller published in 1913 by German writer Maximilian Harden. Hammer revisits the opposed visions incarnated in the original text by the Russian writer and the American magnate in a modern key, transposing them into a stratified conversation at the opening of a contemporary art show. While the speeches of modernized Rockefeller and Tolstoj link multiple views, free-market proponents and left-wing intelligentsia, the others are inspired by ideas and statements by female artists and art critics, such as Martha Rosler, Tracey Emin and Jennifer Allen.