It was a convincing concept, with a somewhat simple message: This might serve to sum up our verdict, as written at a desk in Hamburg at the end of June 2003. Moreover, it was something that, as we must recall, never came to fruition.
The litmus test for the topical importance and relevance of this idea is the sponsors declining to take it on. It was not the church officials, who did not want to be brought into connection with the profane cult of the stock exchange listings in their rooms. It was the sponsors, firms from the financial world, who first hesitated, and then refused their support.
The second aspect attesting to its quality is one we can now see after the fact: Victor Kégli conceived this installation on the eve of the New Economy frenzy, even before Grandma felt pressured to put her savings into stock shares and we were considered foolish if we did not get rich the comfortable way, through speculation. Before everyone, in fact, acted against all reason to dance around the fatted calf, and suddenly, following the stock reports religiously became a mutual regimen everyone shared. Now, even these few months are all but forgotten. It was just too ugly to watch the bubble burst and see the shares plunge to fathomless depths.
After going through this cycle of euphoria, crash, and purge, a concept such as Kégli’s is now, of course, perceived in a different context. Today we look at the world of stocks more soberly and much more realistically. Kégli’s concept is by far no longer charged with such a high degree of relevancy as it was at the time, when he saw the topic coming at us. Perhaps the sponsors would have been more willing to open themselves to this project today, in hindsight, with a quietly critical gesture; but Victor Kégli wants more with his art.