Portrait of a Collection: Deutsche Bank New York inaugurates its art collection at its new headquarters during Frieze

Frieze New York is being held for the tenth time from May 18 to 22. Under the leadership of new director Christine Messineo, the art fair, with Deutsche Bank as Global Lead Partner, returns to Manhattan, taking place at the The Shed cultural center. This year’s edition, featuring 65 leading galleries from the US and around the world, focuses on groundbreaking women artists, from the feminist avant-garde up to the present day. Among the participants are many women artists represented in the Deutsche Bank Collection, including Louise Bourgeois, Huma Bhabha, and Kapwani Kiwanga (here the latter talks with Britta Färber, Chief Curator Deutsche Bank Collection). This year, Deutsche Bank’s lounge at the fair was designed by New York artist Erin O' Keefe, whose abstract photographic works combine the thinking of the digital, virtual age with the heritage of modernism.

While the Frame section presents new artistic positions from Taipei to Tehran, many of the galleries at the fair are showing solo presentations, among others by Liam Gillick, Mai-Thu Perret, and Simon Fujiwara. Frieze is accompanied by an extensive supporting program of talks, events, and projects, including The Ninth Renovation (2022) a poster action by New York artist Tom Burr in public space. Alongside this year's Whitney Biennial, New York institutions are offering a high-profile program for Frieze Week, including Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You I Mean Me.I Mean You at MoMA and ' Gillian Wearing: Wearing Masks at the Guggenheim Museum.

There is no better week to inaugurate the art presentation at Deutsche Bank’s new New York headquarters. Entitled Portrait of a Collection, the Deutsche Bank Center on Columbus Circle explores the history of the New York collection from a transatlantic orientation to its current global form. In the lobby, visitors are welcomed by a commission by London-based artist Idris Khan, whose abstract, multilayered works correspond directly with adjacent Central Park. They pick up on changes in nature, using the score of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons as a foundation. Then, in the 11th floor visitor area, the works of Abstract Expressionist painters such as Jasper Johns and Joan Mitchell, as well as representatives of Pop Art such as James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol, meet creations by iconic German artists including Joseph Beuys, Georg Baselitz, and Sigmar Polke.

Another focus is on Bernd and Hilla Becher and their students, the photographers of the so-called Düsseldorf School. In dreamlike images, Neo Rauch, who had a strong impact on German painting in the 1990s, thematizes the disintegration of the power blocs and the social upheavals in the globalized world. Changing notions of belonging and identity are also becoming a focal point of the collection, In this context, the reappraisal of colonial history and systemic racism is key, as evidenced y the works of African American artists from the collection presented here: Mark Bradford, Glenn Ligon, Xaviera Simmons, Hank Willis Thomas, and Carrie Mae Weems.

The works on the ninth and tenth floors illustrate how diverse the global art landscape has become in recent decades. Here, in addition to prominent artists such as the South African William Kentridge, who engages with the history of apartheid and colonial rule, many younger positions from Great Britain, Italy, China, Korea, and various African countries are represented, including Wangechi Mutu and Haegue Yang.

On Saturday, May 21, at 10 am, you will have the opportunity to explore the collection at the Deutsche Bank Center as part of Frieze. Registration is required at art.americas@db.com.

www.frieze.com