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Kiki Smith, Sueno, 1992
©Barbara Gross
Gallery, Munich
Collection Deutsche Bank
The themes chosen are designed to enhance accessibility to
modern art, which is often not all that simple. Four times a year, guided
tours of the collection take place, the so-called "employee tours"
announced in the intranet portal of the Bank. Organized visits of the
exhibitions in The Lobby Gallery are also offered, and take place during
lunchtime or after work. Particular care is often given to inviting
participating artists. Upon request, guided tours can be organized for
clients and special public groups.
Juul Kraijer, Untitled, 1997
©Galeri Akinci, Amsterdam
Collection
Deutsche Bank
It is essential to Deutsche
Bank's commitment to and understanding of art that the work it acquires is
not merely considered a part of the interior decoration, as so many nice
pictures on the wall. Beyond this, the thematic presentation of the works
can inspire the viewer to an intellectual exploration of the concepts
involved. Books and information on the represented artists can be found in
waiting areas and conference rooms throughout the building, ranging from
Andy Warhol to
Gerhard Richter,
Sol LeWitt,
Richard Serra, and
Dieter Roth. Exhibition catalogues sponsored by Deutsche Bank, such as
Modern Art and America in the National Gallery of Art in Washington,
D.C. from 2001 are also on view, as well as catalogues from numerous
exhibitions at the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin.
 
Deutsche Bank New York, 2003
Deutsche Bank began
collecting international contemporary artists earlier than many other
companies, supporting various movements from Pop to Minimalism in the
process. A large number of employees are proud of the collection's broad
spectrum. "Many don't regularly visit museums. When they do, often staff
members will tell me about artists whose work they've recognized, because
they've seen the work here first. This is gratifying to hear because we've
made an impact," Christensen relates. On the other hand, others are
grateful to the art for entirely practical reasons. According to one
member of staff, the intense gaze of a woman in
Thomas Ruff's monumental photographic portrait Elke Benzenberg,
taken in his customary close-up format, "keeps him awake." In her own
office, Liz Christensen herself has taken a liking to a smaller photograph
by the German megastar
Andreas Gursky, whose works were recently celebrated in an important
retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. The significance of the
collection of the Deutsche Bank is known to museums worldwide, and the
frequent requests to borrow works for exhibitions are usually complied
with.
James Rosenquist's large-scale Mirage with Bedsheet Escape Ladder
from 1975 will soon be leaving the 28th Floor of the Bank and travelling
to a large retrospective of the artist's works. Just as coveted, is
Lee Krasner's seminal work Untitled from 1953/54, a painting made
in the Abstract Expressionist style only two years after her first
one-person exhibition in New York.
A label is affixed next to each
work of art in the Deutsche Bank building, providing information on the
artist, birth date, the work, the medium, and the year the work was made.
These are presently being replaced by new cards broadened to include the
artist's national origin.
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With its far-reaching corporate structure, Deutsche Bank
embodies the corporate citizen and global player; hence,
it is essential to reflect upon the global approach behind the choice of
works for the collection. With an increased presence in Asia, Latin
America, and Eastern Europe, it's also a matter of paying appropriate
tribute to artists from these countries. Far from any notions of quota,
primarily younger artists are supported in the early stages of their
careers. Among these are
Nina Bovasso,
Marc Brandenburg,
Mel Chin,
Jose Bedia, and
Ricardo Mazal – a global crossover. These might be names that don't yet
resonate in quite the same way that
Ellsworth Kelly,
Bruce Nauman, Keith Haring
, or
Jasper Johns do, but all are equally counted in the collection.
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Roy Lichtenstein, The Couple, 1980
©VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2003
Collection Deutsche Bank
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Roy Lichtenstein, Student, 1980
©VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2003
Collection Deutsche Bank
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Jasper Johns, After Holbein, 1993
©VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2003
Collection Deutsche Bank
Beyond this, the works presented in the building reflect the dynamics and
internationalism of the New York location as the center of the art and
financial worlds. Just as the bank's position itself has changed over the
past decades, so too has the strategy underlying the acquisition policy.
At the beginning of a new millennium, the market has become decentralized
and the concept of art broadened. The collection's strength and credo,
however, continues to remain bringing German and American post-war and
contemporary artists into a creative dialogue with one another. Here, the
list of artists represented reads like a "Who's Who" of the most important
makers and pioneers of art. Along with the artists already mentioned, what
also stand out are the paintings, sculptures, and photographs by
Roy Lichtenstein,
Blinky Palermo,
Günther Förg,
Lawrence Weiner,
Louise Nevelson, and
Irving Penn on the Executive Floor, where the works are hung intelligently
and in clear conceptual reference to one another. And, on the walls
generously supplied with wide windows, New York's unique skyline provides
yet another component in this extraordinary setting for viewing art.
Louise Nevelson, Maquette for Sun Disc/Moon Shadow V,
1976-78
©VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2003
Collection Deutsche Bank
On the Trading Floor of Deutsche Bank, a silkscreen by
Neo Rauch, the shooting star among the Leipzig painters, is hanging in the
midst of bustling activity, with arms gesticulating, people shouting, and
computer screens flickering. The title of the bright-red work from 1997,
Academy, is intended to be anything but ironic. One flight above, gazing
in an almost severe manner at the occurrences below, is a diptych by the
artist
Katharina Sieverding, who was born in 1944. The double silkscreen of the
face of an attractive young woman, complete with a cool and steady gaze,
was made in 1998 – one year after the Berlin-based artist represented
Germany at the Venice Biennale. It is highly unlikely indeed that there's
any other Trading Floor in the world outside the walls of Deutsche Bank
where internationally renowned art is presented – not as a screen saver,
but in such an excellent and immediate way. And when the Bank moves
downtown from Midtown Manhattan to Wall Street in a few months' time,
there will be a new space available for art.
Thomas Girst is a
freelance author who writes, among other things, for the NY Art
Magazine; he is also manager of the
Art Science Research Laboratory in New York.
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