The anniversary exhibition "Mensch Berlin" (People Berlin) by the Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank Foundation and the Berliner Volksbank Art Collection will be on view at the Bank Austria Kunstforum Vienna from July 9 to August 21, 2025. Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the art collection, the show presents over 120 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from 1950 to 2011, tracing the artistic transformation of divided Berlin and its neighboring regions. The exhibition was already a huge success with the public in Berlin.
In seven thematically structured rooms, central positions of the Berliner Schule, the Leipzig School, the Neuen Wilden and the alternative East Berlin art scene. A further focus is on the collection's leitmotif "Images of People - Images for People," complemented by Berlin cityscapes and artistic explorations of the Wall and the time of ReunificationAnja Mosbeck, the artistic director and curator of the exhibition, emphasizes that this period of upheaval was a phase of rethinking and rapprochement, in which artists in East and West faced similar visual challenges. Examples of this analogy are the paintings "Woman with a White Snake" (1988) by Angela Hampel and "Cycle of Foreign Women (2)" (1986) by Franek, each of which portrays a self-image of free femininity.
The art collection, founded in 1985 by the GrundkreditBank and expanded in 1999 through the merger with the Berliner Volksbank, surprised with its initially unusual focus on Art from the GDRToday, the collection comprises over 1.500 works by around 200 artists and is owned by the non-profit Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank Foundation. Sebastian Pflum, Managing Director and Director of the Foundation, explains that the first presentation of this exhibition outside of Germany on the occasion of the anniversary also celebrates the close cultural ties between Vienna and Berlin. He referred to the symbolic cutting of the border fence between Austria and Hungary in June 1989, which enabled many East German citizens to leave the country before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The exhibition in Vienna is unfortunately affected by the impending closure of the Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien at the Freyung location and must therefore end on August 21, 2025, instead of the originally planned August 31. Ingried Brugger, Director of the Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien, sees the collaboration with the Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank Foundation as a high-quality farewell to the Freyung and, at the same time, a beginning for future, cooperative, and innovative exhibition projects at new locations. Admission to the exhibition at the Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien is free, and viewings are possible daily from 10.00:18.00 a.m. to XNUMX:XNUMX p.m.