Deutsche Bank has unveiled four new contemporary art commissions at its London headquarters by artists including Jaki Irvine and Claire Hooper. The company has also unveiled works on show at the new building by over 100 artists, giving a glimpse into the bank’s holdings and latest acquisitions.
Dublin-born Irvine’s installation, which was originally commissioned in 2014 for the Deutsche Bank office in Dublin, covers a staircase at the new headquarters (21 Moorfields in the City of London). “The work makes a direct comparison to the plight of human migrants and that of the butterfly. Each year, vast colonies of monarch butterflies journey 4,000 km from Canada to winter in the mountains near Angangueo, in the Mexican state of Michoacan,” says a project statement.
Hooper has transposed images of environments in Wales, Korea and the Amazon rainforest on to wallpaper which hangs across different floors. “Hooper has arranged them by level within the building according to the natural elements. Level six is stories relating to the earth, level eight to the sea and level nine to the sky,” adds the statement.
The other commissioned artists are René Matic and Simeon Barclay; 20 images by Matić are on display across three floors, selected from the ongoing series flags for countries that don’t exist but bodies that do. “I take photos to give bodies and experiences moments of rest and reflection. They show loved ones interrupting space and time,” says Matic.
Huddersfield-born Barclay’s works, combining collage and CGI-rendered compositions, can be viewed internally and externally. Some of the works depict people having “water cooler” chats in the workplace. In a film made by Deutsche Bank, Barclay explains that his new pieces draw on London’s status as a global work hub that attracts people from around the globe. There is no set budget for UK commissions, says a bank spokesperson.
Visitors can also see works by 118 artists dotted around the building, throwing light on the bank’s contemporary art collection which is one of the largest in the world. There are around 55,000 works in the collection in total, down from a peak of 59,000, which focuses on works on paper and photography by international contemporary artists.
The Liminality Triptych (2016) photograph by John Akomfrah, UK’s representative at this year’s Venice Biennale, and Noémie Goudal’s Phoenix IV (detail, 2021) are displayed on level one of the London building. Works by other artists—including Rana Begum, Gerard Byrne, Shezad Dawood, Anya Gallaccio, Siobhán Hapaska, Damien Hirst and Mona Hatoum—are also on show. “We feature over 100 artists from over 27 different nationalities, 49% are women, transgender or non-binary and 48% are people of colour,” says an online statement.
“By displaying our collection in accessible areas, including new commissions for the building, we hope our employees and clients as well as the public, can interact with the artists through their visual narratives and explore how their storytelling echoes with our modern-day society,” says Britta Färber, the global head of Art & Culture at Deutsche Bank, in a statement.
Deutsche Bank continues to be the Global Lead Partner for Frieze Art Fairs (the partnership marks its 21st anniversary this year). In July, the bank announced a profit before tax of €2.4bn for the first half of 2024. Last month Reuters reported that Deutsche Bank had reached settlements with more than half the plaintiffs who accused the lender of underpaying them in the acquisition of the German company Postbank, a process which began during the financial crisis in 2008.