It's like opening a safe.

The Deutsche Bundesbank, which implemented monetary policy decisions and guardian of gold reserves even in times of the common currency, gives an insight into another treasure that has slowly grown: its art collection.

A good 5,000 works have come together in around 70 years, they hang when the Frankfurt headquarters of the central bank is not being renovated, on the conference floors and offices of the Ginnheim concrete building, numerous temporary quarters for employees in downtown Frankfurt, nine head offices and several branches.

They are usually only accessible to bank employees and guests on guided tours.

Florian Balke

Culture editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The Bank and the Museum Giersch of the Goethe University are now presenting 90 selected works in a magnificent composition for six months on Schaumainkai, accessible to everyone, hung in connection with other works of art, perceptible in completely new relationships.

The exhibition is called “change of location”, because what is otherwise attached to bog oak paneling or serves to aesthetically and intellectually uplift day-to-day office life next to coat racks and indoor plants now speaks for itself on white walls. And with other works of art.

You can see a snapshot of the moment.

In 2021, employees and paintings left the headquarters, from which three quarters of the works on display originate.

When the building has been renovated in a few years and new buildings have been added, some of the pictures and employees will be redistributed.

Until then, strong individual works that otherwise hang many meters or several hundred kilometers apart will come together in exciting formal and thematic combinations in the Giersch Museum.

A Magdalena by Marlene Dumas has arrived from Dresden, who is now entering into a trialogue with Karl Hofer's "Sinnennder" from 1936, an early post-war purchase for long-term study, and the fascinating "Bride" (1995) by Cornelia Slime.

sinner, penitent?

Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that.

This Magdalena stands in the pictorial space with both feet on the ground and energetic hands.

But where is the really solid ground?

And what does the black mean to her white?

The other?

the nothing?

Meanwhile, the cyclist from Baselitz seems to be playing with the sun ball, Immendorf, Mattheuer, a large and a small Kirkeby, a large and a small Rupprecht Geiger - the series of works ranges from big names to three radiant small works by Ida Kerkovius.

The often interesting purchase dates are not disclosed – the bank management collected works of the Informel and the Quadriga as early as the late 1950s, while Ernst Wilhelm Nay’s “Firmament” (1963) was only added in the 1980s, when an advisory board closed gaps.

To this day, the collection is expanded annually for around 100,000 euros, from Isa Genzken's "Untitled" (2017) to Anne Imhof's "I promise to be good II" (2018).

This is how the treasure grows.

Change of location – The art collection of the Deutsche Bundesbank.

Until January 8, 2023, Museum Giersch of the Goethe University, Schaumainkai 83, Frankfurt, Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday until 8 p.m