Let's Celebrate
One Year of the PalaisPopulaire

The PalaisPopulaire is celebrating its first anniversary. On the weekend from Friday, September 27, to Sunday, September 29, admission to the current summer of love exhibition is free. In addition, visitors can take advantage of a variety of offers free of charge, including guided tours, a reading of texts by Joan Didion, and the traditional parkour workshop.

Exactly one year ago, the PalaisPopulaire opened its doors with The World on Paper. Encompassing more than 300 works by 133 artists, the exhibition provided new insights into the diversity, history, and international orientation of the Deutsche Bank Collection and explored the fascination of the medium of paper from different perspectives. It was an ambitious start, because all of the exhibitions at the PalaisPopulaire are integrated into an interdisciplinary program of art, culture, sports, dance, performance, and literature. The concept was devised to create a truly open house that enables everyone to make new connections and have cultural experiences.

A year of PalaisPopulaire was a year of talks, workshops, activities for children and teenagers, and long club nights where people could listen to DJ sets in the exhibition rooms. Whether teenagers trained parkour with professionals, meditation and nude drawing courses were held, or the British ambassador Sebastian Wood discussed "Britishness" in Germany with presenter Andrea Thilo in the context of the Tate show Objects of Wonder – the PalaisPopulaire quickly found its place in the cultural landscape of the capital.

A key aspect of the program is an examination of the possibilities, problems, and visions of a digitalized society. This fall, two shows deal with this topic in very different ways. In November, Caline Aoun: seeing is believing, the Deutsche Bank “Artist of the Year” exhibition, opens at the PalaisPopulaire. Aoun, who lives and works in Beirut, shows in her abstract and poetic works that the supposedly immaterial "digital" has quite tangible effects on reality, physically shaping not only our perception but also our relationships, environments, and societies. In parallel, Das Totale Tanz Theater transports the spirit of renewal and artistic visions of the Bauhaus into the twenty-first century. Inspired by Oskar Schlemmer's stage experiments and Walter Gropius' "total theater" project, the virtual reality installation conceived by the Interactive Media Foundation transports visitors to a 400-meter-high modernist cathedral. On this virtual stage, they encounter interactive dance machines that invite them to become part of the choreography. A sensual dance experience – and at the same time a highly topical reflection on the relationship between man and machine.  

In 2020, the PalaisPopulaire is expanding its concept. In addition to digital offers such as augmented reality and the exhibition app, it will offer visitors a completely new experience: The PalaisPopulaire will be the first institution in Europe to use artificial intelligence for art education. Visitors can chat with MIA with IBM Watson about artworks completely undisturbed and, for the most part, ask anything they want. Starting in March, MIA will be used in Time Present, the exhibition marking the fortieth anniversary of the Deutsche Bank Collection.

After the medium of paper, the second exhibition of works from the Deutsche Bank Collection focuses on photography. From the D�sseldorf School around Bernd and Hilla Becher to new, global positions, Time Present traces the development of photographic art in the corporate collection from the 1980s to the present. At the same time, Christo & Jeanne-Claude – Projects 1963-2020, an exhibition devoted to one of the most popular artist couples of our time, opens at the PalaisPopulaire. Featuring drawings and objects from the Ingrid & Thomas Jochheim Collection, the show documents spectacular wrapping actions spanning six decades.

Let's Celebrate
One Year of the PalaisPopulaire

September 27 – 29, 2019
PalaisPopulaire

All information about the program can be found at: db-palaispopulaire.com