Deutsche Bank presents Wangechi Mutu at the Deutsche Guggenheim as the first "Artist of the Year"

Frankfurt am Main / Berlin, Wangechi Mutu is Deutsche Bank’s first Artist of the Year. On this occasion, the Deutsche Guggenheim is presenting the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work in Germany. With some 40 paintings, collages, and videos executed between 2003 and 2010, as well as an installation conceived especially for the exhibition hall, My Dirty Little Heaven (April 30 - June 13, 2010) provides insight into her fascinating oeuvre.

Wangechi Mutu, who was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1972 and now lives in New York, is one of the most interesting artists of her generation. Her work is captivating due to the distinctive link between beauty and terror, surreal poetry and social criticism. For My Dirty Little Heaven, she transformed the Deutsche Guggenheim into a suggestive environment which recalls both a protective cocoon and the improvised settlements found on the peripheries of mega cities.

With the Artist of the Year award, Deutsche Bank is opening a new chapter in its commitment to art. On the recommendation of Deutsche Bank’s Global Art Advisory Council, which includes internationally renowned curators Okwui Enwezor, Hou Hanru, Udo Kittelmann, and Nancy Spector, the bank honors a young artist who has already amassed an unmistakable and extraordinary oeuvre, in which works on paper or photography play an important role.

Unlike other awards, the prize is not based on a financial reward, but positioned as an integral part of Deutsche Bank’s art program that has been creating access to art for 30 years. Each Artist of the Year will be featured in a large solo exhibition at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, which will subsequently be presented at other international locations - this year at the art space WIELS in Brussels. In addition, the bank is acquiring works on paper by the artist for its collection, which in the case of Wangechi Mutu will be on view at the end of 2010 on a complete floor of Deutsche Bank’s modernized company headquarters in Frankfurt.

Accompanying the Wangechi Mutu exhibition at the Deutsche Guggenheim is a comprehensive catalogue with contributions by Okwui Enwezor, Lauri Firstenberg, Courtney J. Martin and Klaus Ottmann. The catalogue, which is in German and English, costs 35 euros. As edition no. 51 to the exhibition, Wangechi Mutui had a 60-piece Corian puzzle made from a digital print of work The Bride who married a Camel’s head. The limited edition of 100 copies + 10 A.P. is exclusively available at the Deutsche Guggenheim SHOP.
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Photo material to the exhibition can be downloaded directly from the Internet at www.photo-files.de/guggenheim.

About Deutsche Bank

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