The exhibition programme 2025 is inspired by the unique genesis of the Kunstsammlung der Berliner Volksbank (Art Collection of the Berliner Volksbank) and its thematic focus. Based on the original leitmotif “Pictures of people – pictures for people”, the multi-part exhibition series is based on the four elements: water, earth, fire and air. The four elements – as archaic forms of our world, of our human existence – are juxtaposed with themes that concern us today: From digital spheres, blurring identities to a view into the vastness of the universe.
The exhibition Wasser. Digitale Kanäle (Water. Digital Channels) marks the start of the multi-part exhibition series. The element of water is examined through the lense of a technologised and digitalised world. Water is intuitively associated with a forceful nature. The exhibition opens with artist Hans Laabs (1915-2004) and his intensive exploration of the sea. In his works, an undefined figure gazes out over the vast ocean in pastose, strong blue hues. It’s a dark, turbulent, mysterious sea that is depicted here. This notion is juxtaposed with works by contemporary artists that show how, in today’s industrialised world, seas, waters and rivers have long been “connected” to data streams and are part of digital spheres. The artists in the exhibition take a poetic look at the penetration of water by human intervention and technology.
A second exhibition will open simultaneously on the upper floor of the Stiftung Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank: The Female Touch (Weibliche Berührung) brings together female artists who work as sculptors. Haptics and a strong gesture – touching, feeling, sensing – are central features of their artistic practice. Traditional materials from stone to brick are shown together with more recent techniques from aluminum to latex. This broad spectrum of materials and media illustrates how corporeality is omnipresent as personal and social theme and has been worked on – by female artists – over the decades. Above all, the female body as an eternal motif, between object of desire and self-empowerment, is at the centre of the debate. The female artists on display from the Kunstsammlung der Berliner Volksbank include Sylvia Hagen, Sabine Heller, Ingeborg Hunzinger and Christina Renker.