Deutsche Bank
New York, New York

“We believe the arts enhance our ability to respond to an increasingly complex and fast moving world with new perspectives, ideas, and insights. Partnerships between business and the arts embrace the vitality of the world around us and serve the human spirit.”

- Seth H. Waugh, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank Americas

EMPLOYEES
Contemporary art by emerging and established artists has been an important part of Deutsche Bank’s workplace since 1978. Today, nearly 50,000 works are on view in conference rooms, hallways, elevators, and reception areas. With the largest corporate art collection in the world, Deutsche Bank’s Art Works program is meant to encourage employee understanding and appreciation of contemporary art across cultures and generations. Through this collection, the bank contributes vital support to contemporary artists, while creating a visually diverse and stimulating work environment.

Employees are informed of the bank’s art programs through posters, banners, Intranet announcements, and internal publications. DB Art Enthusiasts are invited to exhibition openings, artist talks, curatorial tours, and fundraiser art auctions. Through its corporate membership program, employees and family receive complimentary or discounted admission to museums, orchestras, and operas.

Deutsche Bank hosts a variety of onsite enrichment programs. Free tours are offered for each exhibition at 60 Wall Gallery in New York. Additionally, the Meet the Artist series allows employees to hear presentations from artists about their work. Deutsche Bank also joins forces with groups such as the Multicultural Partnership and Rainbow Group Americas to host events surrounding exhibition themes, such as Dare to Struggle Dare to Win, a show of emerging Chinese artists working in the United States and Double Vision, which featured artist duos of the same gender who work together as one.

Additionally, many employees serve on the boards of arts organizations and the bank supports organizations served by employee volunteers through the Volunteer Assistance Fund and Initiative Plus grants. The bank matches employee donations dollar-for-dollar up to $5,000 per year to arts organizations.

CUSTOMERS/CLIENTS
To increase support for the arts, Deutsche Bank introduces arts organizations to top executives of other companies, hedge fund managers, wealthy individuals, and family foundations. It frequently holds client events, meetings, MBA recruiting gatherings, and press conferences in arts venues.

COMMUNITY
Recognizing the important role artists play in revitalizing the community, Deutsche Bank developed the Art and Enterprise grants program in 2002 to foster relationships between low income communities and arts organizations to affect positive social and economic change. Since 2002, the bank has given over $4.4 million to fund the creation of new cultural destinations in once neglected neighborhoods. Through its recently established New Spaces: New Opportunities grant program, the bank has committed $1.2 million to midsize cultural institutions throughout New York City that are undertaking capital campaigns for new or enhanced facilities. The funds support cultural institutions at a critical time in their development as they move their organizations to the next level and awardees have included The Bronx Museum, Harlem Stage/Aaron Davis Hall, Queens Theatre in the Park, Queens Museum, Staten Island Museum, and the Weeksville Heritage Center.

Deutsche Bank also provides support for the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Mentoring Program, which provides immigrant artists an opportunity to gain professional advancement with the help of a NYFA fellow. Since 1999, Deutsche Bank has partnered with NYFA to award an annual fellowship to an outstanding New York City artist. In partnership with the Bronx Council on the Arts, Deutsche Bank sponsored the Bronx Black Book, a guide to creative business resources in the Bronx that is an easy reference for local museums, art galleries, and nonprofits.

The bank also sponsors groundbreaking exhibitions at major museums, such as the Anish Kapoor’s Past Present, Future at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the 2008 Whitney Biennial; and the 2008 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art. It also creates exhibitions from its collection featuring its recent Deutsche Bank Artist of the Business Year Miwa Yanagi at the Chelsea Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Art Houston. Deutsche Bank also lends pieces for exhibitions, such as Cai Guo Qiang’s piece Head On, for the Guggenheim Museum retrospective I Want to Believe.

As a global partner with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the bank supports exhibitions in New York and at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, which is located in the bank’s building. Together, the museum and bank commission artists—including Anish Kapoor, Cai Guo Qiang, Jeff Koons, James Rosenquist, Phoebe Washburn, and Kara Walker—to create new works, many of which become part of the bank’s collection. The bank is currently sponsoring the Three M Project in conjunction with the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Hammerm Museum in Los Angeles. The Three M Project embraces a new spirit of collaboration aimed at building museum collections by co-commissioning, exhibiting, and acquiring works by international emerging artists. This year Deutsche Bank will be a lead sponsor of the opening night of the Metropolitan Opera’s 125th Season.