The Written Art Collection is one of the most important private collections of contemporary written art. Encompassing around 400 works, it includes art from Europe, North America, East Asia, and the Middle East. The art-historical spectrum ranges from gestural abstract painting in the West after 1945 to contemporary calligraphy and the diverse forms of expression found in global conceptual and media art.

The exhibition Seeing Words, Reading Images brings together positions from the Written Art Collection with selected works from the Deutsche Bank Collection, one of the leading corporate collections of contemporary works on paper, in a multifaceted dialogue. The starting point is the complex and highly topical phenomenon of writing and script in art—as line, informal gesture, handwriting and calligraphy, typography, or the written image. The focus is on the significance of written art as a medium of global understanding and on the boundless visual and textual possibilities of storytelling, whether in poetry, political criticism, or the reappraisal of history.

Charmaine Poh has been chosen as Deutsche Bank’s "Artist of the Year" for 2025. Born in 1990, the Singaporean-Chinese artist and documentary filmmaker divides her time between Singapore and Berlin. In her work, she explores themes such as agency and repair, as well as the visibility and invisibility of queerness and femininity in Asia. Her work is also influenced by Eastern philosophy, media criticism, and cyberfeminism.

Drawing on the layered history of the PalaisPopulaire, the exhibition It's Just a Matter of Time explores the confluence of temporalities. Once the palace of Prussian princesses, the building has undergone many transformations, evolving from a museum to a war ruin, and later becoming a GDR-era opera café that also served as a haven for the queer community. After years of standing vacant, it found new life in 2018 as an exhibition space for contemporary art.

What binds us together and makes us part of a community? What does it take from each individual to create a sense of togetherness? OnView is a new film series at the PalaisPopulaire, presented every spring and fall. Over a period of up to six weeks, films by international artists are shown, centered around a common theme.

The inaugural edition, Togetherness, features works by Trisha Brown, Cao Fei, Rene Matić, Cinthia Marcelle, Marco Perego, and Koki Tanaka. These films explore forms of belonging, community, solidarity, and trust, offering profound reflections on what it means to be connected.

Indian artist Rohini Devasher’s research-intensive practice explores the boundaries between science, art, and philosophy. Borrowed Light, Devasher’s first institutional solo exhibition in Germany, is characterized by her long-standing engagement with astronomy, in which light plays a central role.

Indian artist Rohini Devasher’s research-intensive practice explores the boundaries between science, art, and philosophy. Borrowed Light, Devasher’s first institutional solo exhibition in Germany, is characterized by her long-standing engagement with astronomy, in which light plays a central role.

The artist Galli was born in Saarland in 1944. After completing her basic apprenticeship at the Werkkunstschule in Saarbrücken with Oscar Holweck, she moved to Berlin in 1969 where she studied under and later became the master student of the Dutch artist and graphic designer Martin Engelmann, who was influenced by the Cobra Group. Galli’s arrival to Berlin aligned with the '68 uprisings in German in which political provocation, awakening, and upheaval expanded beyond the university. At the beginning of the 1980s, the Neuen Wilden movement developed in Germany and Austria, a group mainly dominated by men, to which Galli likes to be assigned, but which she consciously distanced herself from in her painting.

The exhibition See How You Get On curated by Annabell Burger includes about fifty works created between 1985 and 2015. Among them are rarely shown artists' books and drawings, as well as paintings from Galli's most productive years.

Curated by Annabelle Burger, M.A.

 In cooperation with Kunstmuseum Schloss Derneburg

Entitled With Blue Birds, the PalaisPopulaire is dedicating a presentation to Leiko Ikemura, which combines sculptural loans with works on paper from the Deutsche Bank Collection in front of the institution and in the rotunda.

La Chola Poblete, has been named Deutsche Bank’s “Artist of the Year” for 2023. The Argentinian critically examines the consequences of colonialism and white supremacy in her home country. In watercolors, sculptures, installations, and performances, she reflects on her indigenous and queer roots and opposes the stereotyping and exoticization of indigenous peoples. With Guaymallén, the PalaisPopulaire is showing La Chola Poblete’s first solo exhibition in Germany.

The exhibition traces the various stages of the gallery owner’s life as reflected in art. Works from different periods of origin are juxtaposed to create exciting dialogues, enabling conclusions to be drawn about existential themes of humankind. Since 1956, all aspects of Rudolf Zwirner’s life have been closely linked with art, the development of which he decisively shaped in the second half of the twentieth century up to the present day.

Erwin Wurm turns the rules of sculpture on their head. In his most recent sculptures from the series Skins (2021), one of which is now being presented in front of the PalaisPopulaire, Wurm radically reduces the volume. His work, which is almost four meters high, look like suit bags or skins from which the bodies have been sucked out. The filigree, fragile-looking sculptures consist of partial casts of living models, like from the actor and artist Lars Eidinger.

In 2013, five years after the world was convulsed by a global financial crisis, Isaac Julien premiered his film Playtime to address an important question: can capital be rendered visible? The PalaisPopulaire and the Wemhöner Collection have joined forces to shed new light on Playtime from today’s perspective and to testify to the work’s continued relevance.

Kapwani Kiwanga uses the formal vocabulary of minimal and conceptual art to develop new spatial and visual experiences. 

Britta Färber, Chief Curator of the Deutsche Bank Collection, talks with Kapwani Kiwanga about color, architecture, and power, about Sun Rae and Afrofuturism—and much more.

This event will take place online. You can register for the Zoom Webinar or watch the event live on YouTube.

Deutsche Bank’s “Artist of the Year” award has been promoting young artists working with paper or photography since 2010. To mark the tenth anniversary of the award, three artists are now being honored for the first time: Maxwell Alexandre, Conny Maier und Zhang Xu Zhan. They reflect elementary themes such as community, myths, and environmental destruction. Three statements on the human condition that call for radical rethinking.

Marc Brandenburg’s pencil drawings, reversed into negatives, capture everyday, ephemeral motifs, including costumed demonstrators, a bank in Berlin's Tiergarten, garbage, graffiti, advertising, sleeping places of homeless people. The artist, who was born in 1965, strolls through cities such as Berlin, London, and Barcelona, photographing his impressions and then drawing them “like a human photocopier.”

Aspects of contemporary abstract art, coupled with historical reminiscences, are the focus of the third exhibition showcasing works from the Deutsche Bank Collection at the PalaisPopulaire. The selection includes some 180 works from 1959 to 2021. In keeping with the collection as a whole, the works on view are globally oriented, created by 51 artists from fourteen countries. 

The retrospective K.H. Hödicke, which after its premiere at the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München is now on view in Berlin presents the artist’s core creative phases from the early 1960s on.

We are still there for you digitally: #PalaisPopulaireForYou offers insights into the exhibitions and events and brings them to your home. https://www.db-palaispopulaire.de/en/palaispopulaireforyou.htm