Through the Stiftung KUNSTFORUM der Berliner Volksbank gemeinnützige GmbH, the Berliner Volksbank eG primarily promotes art and cultural work in the Berlin-Brandenburg region that inspires and excites art lovers, customers and employees. It was founded in 2007
as the umbrella under which the Berliner Volksbank eG combines its promotion of art and culture.
This work rests on the following three pillars:
• Stiftung Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank (museum)
• Werkstatt für Kreative (educational outreach programme)
• Kunstsammlung der Berliner Volksbank (art collection)
The exhibition space Stiftung Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank at Lietzenseepark has a modern and contemporary appearance. The focus is on the presentation of art from the institution’s own collection from various art-historical perspectives.
Solo exhibitions were held in honour of the Berlin artists Harald Metzkes and Hans Laabs and to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall the exhibition Zeitenwende brought together works of art on the theme of East-West. Aufbrüche. Abbrüche. Umbrüche. Kunst in Ost-Berlin 1985 – 1995, MENSCHENBILD – der expressionistische Blick and SchlagLicht were successful projects created in collaboration with regional and national partners.
The exhibition space Stiftung Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank opened its doors in 1985 at Budapester Strasse 35 as the Kunstforum der GrundkreditBank on the ground floor of the then headquarters of this cooperative bank. Following the merger with the Berliner Volksbank it took the name Kunstforum der Berliner Volksbank. This was followed by the move to Kaiserdamm 105 in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 2018. In 2021 the exhibition space was renamed Stiftung Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank.
Since mid-2021 additional space has been added on the first floor, connected to the existing rooms on the ground floor. This significant expansion of the exhibition space offers even better conditions for the Stiftung Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank to cooperate again with regional, national and international partners.
With the Werkstatt für Kreative (Workshop for the Creative) launched in summer 2005, the Stiftung KUNSTFORUM der Berliner Volksbank gGmbH is one of the pioneers in the cultural mediation segment for children and young people in Berlin. The interactive, age-differentiated tours and workshops for school classes, in particular, have been and are very well received. Since it was founded, nearly 60,000 children and young people from Berlin and Brandenburg have taken part in the workshops, which are largely free of charge.
In the framework of the exhibitions in the Stiftung Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank, children and young people learn artistic techniques such as drawing, watercolours, drypoint, collages, printing or modelling under the expert guidance of museum educators.
In addition, the Werkstatt für Kreative also offers external art education programs, for example during the IGA Berlin 2017 and FEZitty. It also regularly contributes to holiday activities such as kids Kreativ and KinderKulturMonat.
The original leitmotif “Bilder vom Menschen – Bilder für Menschen” (Images of People – Images for People), to which “Berliner Stadtbilder” (Images of the City Berlin) was later added, still forms the conceptual basis for the art collection of Berliner Volksbank founded in 1985.
When GrundkreditBank – Köpenicker Bank merged with Berliner Volksbank in 1999, the institutes’ art collections were also melded to form a unique ensemble. In the first years, the concept produced in 1985 led to a concentration on artistic positions in German post-war art, mainly realism. It put emphasis on artists from Berlin and East Germany – an orientation that was considered visionary in West Berlin in the 1980s.
Since then the balance between East and West German art has been evened out. Thus the collection offers an opportunity to compare artistic work by younger and older generations from the art scene in Berlin as well as in adjoining regions of the East and West before and after the fall of the Wall in a remarkable collecting context.
The collection currently consists of more than 1,500 works by around 200 artists with a strong emphasis on German representational art after 1950. From the point of view of art history and cultural policy, too, this is an important collection, as it traces artistic developments in Germany over the past seven decades. Paintings, sculptures and works on paper are collected.
In addition, the Stiftung KUNSTFORUM der Berliner Volksbank gGmbH looks after around 200 other works of art that are not part of the core inventory of the art collection.