Today is One Hundred Years Ago:
Observations on the
Art in the Bank Building at Frankfurt's Roßmarkt
Peter Doig, Elisabeth Peyton, Miwa Yagani: Deutsche Bank's "Corporate
Cultural Affairs" has recently moved to Frankfurt's Roßmarkt; the art
hanging in the new building reflects the profile and history of the bank's
art collection.
A different image seems to echo in each of his
paintings and graphic works, a different location that has been
remembered, imagined, or created in paint: in
Peter Doig's print 100 Years Ago (2001) hanging in Dr. Ariane
Grigoteit's recently refurbished office, a long-haired man in a canoe
gazes back at the viewer; together with the red hue of the boat, his
silhouette is reflected in the waves below him. The figure riding along
the water could be a hunter; far more than that, however, he resembles a
faded rock legend from the seventies, an image from a record cover or a
poster someone might have found at a flea market.
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Peter Doig, 100 Years Ago, 2001
Deutsche Bank Collection
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Peter Doig, Surfer, 2001
Deutsche
Bank Collection
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Just as speculative as the work's title are the "good old days" the image
invokes – in Doig's paintings, personal and collective memories and
vestiges of stories merge into dreamlike images of individual moments. The
London art critic
Adrian Searle termed Doig's work "costumed historical painting," based as
it is on snapshots and pictures from films and newspapers. Its scenes are
"as fake as a glued-on beard" and make it almost impossible to say for
sure where the truth lies – what has been seen or invented, and what we
invent ourselves.
Rossmarkt Frankfurt / Mn. um 1910
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Rossmarkt Frankfurt /Mn., 1986
It's no accident that Dr. Ariane Grigoteit, director of Deutsche Bank's
worldwide art activities, has chosen Doig's canoe rider for her recently
furnished office at Frankfurt's Roßmarkt. Like other artists of the
younger generation, the artist, who was born in Great Britain in 1959 and
grew up in Canada, uses an apparently "classical" medium such as
traditional landscape painting, anchoring it in the present in a highly
individual way. Antagonistic components maintain an equilibrium of tension
in Peter Doig's paintings: abstract and figurative, near and far, the
moment and duration, tradition and innovation; together, they turn his
work into a highly contemporary expression of a brittle world that can be
interpreted in a number of ways.
In times of economic and social
upheaval, the question as to what contribution art can make in defining
cultural values and bringing divergent traditions, social needs, and ways
of seeing the world into dialogue with one another proves all the more
urgent. The same goes for corporate culture, as well: beginning last year,
Deutsche Bank's worldwide cultural and social activities were unified;
since then, they have been coordinated under a single company entity,
"Corporate Cultural Affairs." This newly founded entity was
finally able to move into its permanent home in April of this year,
bringing together the various foundations and departments active in a wide
range of cultural and social areas under a single roof; Deutsche Bank
Art's office spaces now reside here, as well. The building at Roßmarkt 18
was erected in 1903/04 for the Diskonto Company. Following the extensive
changes that took place in city construction during and after the war, the
building is today one of the few remaining landmarks on the central plaza
of Frankfurt's inner city.
Rossmarkt, Innenansicht
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