About a decade ago, Deutsche Bank initiated the Artist of the Year program. On the occasion of its 10th anniversary it is now for the first time awarding three artists at the same time: Maxwell Alexandre, Conny Maier, and Zhang Xu Zhan. What all three have in common is that they came to contemporary art via unusual paths and bring very specific life experiences and cultural influences with them. Maxwell Alexandre was born in Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro’s largest favela, where he still lives today. The paintings and installations of the artist of African descent revolve around community and violence, hip-hop and spirituality. Conny Maier lives and works in Berlin and Portugal and is one of the most important discoveries in the current German painting scene. Maier’s art reflects a world shaped by representation and materialism, in which people seem to lose control. Zhang Xu Zhan was born in 1988 into a family that has been making and trading in traditional paper figurines for over a century. His stop-motion films, staged in immersive installations, take us into the realm of nature spirits and demons. With translations of the text about the work of Maxwell Alexandre in Brazilian Portuguese, with translation of the text about the work of Conny Maier in German and with a translation of the text about the work of Zhang Xu Zhan in Chinese. Text in English, Portuguese, Chinese and German.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude rank among the most popular artist couples of our time. They were unrivalled in breaking the art world's tight boundaries and arousing the enthusiasm of a broad public, across all social strata, for their spectacular shrouding's of buildings and landscapes. The PalaisPopulaire presents the Jochheim Collection and traces the history of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's breathtaking large-scale projects; complemented by their rarely seen early works. Of course, the wrapping of the Reichstag takes centre stage, which enabled all of Berlin to shine in a most unique way 25 years ago. Text in English and German.

Marc Brandenburg (* 1965) strolls through cities, photographing his impressions and then drawing them “like a human photocopier.” In this almost meditative process, he finds beauty in social conditions. His pencil drawings, reversed into negatives, capture everyday, ephemeral motifs. Brandenburg is interested in moments when inner and outer states unite, when human beings merge with their costumes, their clothing, or their dwellings. Formal and conceptual aspects of drawing, as well as a fundamental examination of representation, are more important to him than the motifs themselves. The publication Hirnsturm II accompanies the exhibition of the same name, a visual essay that combines drawings from a period of over 25 years with more recent works. Text in English and German.

The transition from the analogue to the digital age has radically changed our present. The global flow of data shapes social systems, but the circulation and processing of data does not seem to be linked to the reality of our lives. As Deutsche Bank's 'Artist of the Year', young Lebanese artist Caline Aoun (*1983) reveals how data manifests itself materially and how inseparable the real and the virtual world have become. For her, the permanent flood of images and data resembles 'noise' that dominates our lives. Instead of further intensifying this media noise, she lends it a material dimension in order to create new experiences, forms of silence, and empty spaces, and to show otherwise scarcely tangible connections. Text in English and German.

Opera, whose name derives from the Italian word for “work,” is a genre in constant flux. While some see it as representing outdated bourgeois culture, for many others it embodies the ultimate art form with almost revolutionary possibilities. Situated next to the State Opera, the PalaisPopulaire, in cooperation with MAXXI - National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome, will present the exhibition OPERA OPERA Allegro ma non troppo in 2022. Based on a wide and significant selection of the Museum’s Collection, the show as well as the catalogue are devoted to a quintessentially Italian subject while at the same time exploring the fascination and potential of opera as a theatrical Gesamtkunstwerk - a total work of art - from the perspective of global visual arts. The artists featured deal with physical expression, masking, staging, performativity, experiences of space, and sound. Artists: Vanessa Beecroft, Monica Bonvicini, William Kentridge, Liliana Moro, Olaf Nicolai, Luigi Ontani, Susan Philipsz, Kara Walker. Text in English and German.

Memory responds to the acquisitions Deutsche Bank has made over the past decade, many of which are by artists from Africa and/or are of African descent. By focusing on personal narratives, alternative perspectives and lesser-known stories, the exhibition seeks to identify the unstable, exploit the slippages, and make clear that the struggle against balance of power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. Artists: Yto Barrada, Sammy Baloji, Mohamed Camara, Samuel Fosso, Anawana Haloba, Lubaina Himid, Lebohang Kganye, Wangechi Mutu, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Zohra Opoku, Paulo Nazareth, Jo Ractliffe, Berni Searle, Mikhael Subotzky, Dineo Sehee Bopape, Kara Walker, Alberta Whittle, Joy Cheong Wong. Text in English and German.

The first of Deutsche Bank Collection's new exhibition series, presented at 'PalaisPopulair' in Berlin, is dedicated to the fascinating artistic medium of paper. The World on Paper shows how the everyday and at the same time sensual material paper opens up surprising possibilities, even in an era of innovative technologies. The publication also documents the fact that works on paper in particular give rise to connections with other media and hence visualise current art in all its breadth. Artists: Doug Aitken, Josef Albers, Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Hanne Darboven, Ellen Gallagher, Hermann Glöckner, Katharina Grosse, Eva Hesse, Anish Kapoor, William Kentridge, Martin Kippenberger, Imi Knoebel, Maria Lassnig, Markus Lüpertz, Heinz Mack, Helen Marten, Joan Mitchell, Takashi Murakami, Wangechi Mutu, Bruce Nauman, Blinky Palermo, Sigmar Polke, Neo Rauch, Gerhard Richter, James Rosenquist, Karin Sander, Kara Walker, Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner, et. al. Text in English and German.