Saturday 26 January 2008, 11.00–17.00
Sunday 27 January 2008, 11.00–17.00

The Living Currency (La Monnaie Vivante) is a two-day exhibition, in which historical and more recent approaches to the body as a focus of performance in the visual arts are placed in confrontation with the latest developments in contemporary dance. The Living Currency will feature works by Tania Bruguera, Prinz Gholam, Sanja Ivekovic, David Lamelas, Santiago Sierra, Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet (les gens D’Uterpan), Franz Erhard Walther and Lawrence Weiner.

Occurring within the public space of the museum and set in relation to each other, these performances situate actions in a physical and political space, producing gestures and signs that inflect the collective, cultural environment.

The title of the exhibition refers to La Monnaie Vivante (1970), a text by the French writer and painter Pierre Klossowski (1905–2001). Klossowski’s text develops an alternative model of economic exchange, which places the body at the center of our everyday relation to the economy as the only valid form of currency. The Living Currency brings together artists who explore this theme in a number of contrasting, illuminating and provocative ways; in terms of living objects and inanimate bodies, human presence, use and manipulation, and law and order in society for example.

“The intention with the introduction of art works and performances by visual artists into a theatrical situation is not to consider these works as theatrical, but rather to expose them as anti-theatrical. As for the interactivity with the public, the exhibition The Living Currency is not dealing with the interactive notion but on the contrary with the situation of interpassivity installed by the information society and the mass media. Anti-theatricality and interpassivity are investigated by the artists and artworks in The Living Currency to propose a certain duality between disciplines rather than an official dialogue.” Pierre Bal-Blanc

A talk about Klossowski’s essay, featuring speakers Pierre Bal-Blanc and Sarah Wilson takes place in the Starr Auditorium on Saturday 26 January from 17.00 until 18.30 (free, limited capacity).

UBS Openings: Live. The Living Currency is curated by Pierre Bal-Blanc, director and curator of the CAC Brétigny, France, in collaboration with Alice Koegel, Curator, Tate Modern, and Vanessa Desclaux, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern.

Previous versions of the ongoing project were presented in 2006 in Studio Micadanses in Paris and in November 2007 at STUK in Leuven (Belgium).

Tate Modern  Turbine Hall Bridge
Free, no booking necessary
For all ages