Francis Whorrall-Campbell: Trade

KUNSTVEREIN GARTENHAUS is pleased to invite you on Thursday the 2nd of July 2026 at 19.30 to Francis Whorrall-Campbell’s new performance Trade, as part of the INTERMEZZO program.

“Close behind the mimetic taboo stands a sexual one: Nothing should be moist; art becomes hygienic” (Theodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory)

Trade is a play in two acts for two actors. Act I (presented for the first time at Kunstverein Gartenhaus) follows the artist Francis Bacon and his lover, the petty thief George Dyer, through a flirtatious robbery and role-play scenario.

1963. Mr. Bacon’s Kensington studio. Broken skylight. Mess of books, paints, canvases; whether by dint of an outside disturbance, or the artist’s preferred working conditions it is impossible to tell. To the left, a doorway leading to a narrow hallway where stairs descend to an unseen living space. The time is between 2:00 and 4:00am

Performed by Albin Bergström and Frank Wasser

Doors: 19:30
Start: 20:00 (sharp)

Trade is part of the INTERMEZZO series. Conceived to happen between shows, INTERMEZZO enhances the exhibition program of KUNSTVEREIN GARTENHAUS with performative interventions circling around sound, spoken word, dance and movement. The series is conceived by Lewon Heublein.

Francis Whorrall-Campbell

Francis Whorrall-Campbell (b. 1995) is an artist, researcher, and writer from the UK living in Vienna. In their artistic practice, Francis uses sculpture, performance, and image-making to approach form as an infrastructure of representation. He has a particular interest in techniques of reproduction (copying, bootlegging, faking, defrauding), the logics of property, and the affects and effects of brutality.