About
The exhibition is installed in a gallery in the former London office of Deutsche Bank AG, who vacated the space last November. In the walnut-panelled office on the third floor, the whiteboard still bears the traces of the subjects under discussion: Risk Management, Capital Liquidity, Private Wealth, Oil, Bonds, Leverage. Looking down out of the window one sees a well-proportioned terrace, which in turn faces the Portland stone elevations of the pedestrianised avenue. The hubris of the street doesn't penetrate this room or this exhibition, which both reflects and cuts a section through the current situation. In Beat Streuli's work, a woman's headscarved face scrutinises the office from the wall, reminding us that workers are at the disposal of the banking class. In an echo of reality, Streuli's work forms part of the world renowned Deutsche Bank Collection. There is writing on the whiteboard on the wall behind the bankers desk - is it from this that the woman in Dolores Sanchez Calvo's oil painting hides her face? Is this world an uncomfortable reality, which she would rather not know? On the over-large TV screen on the cabinet Deej Fabyc's performance shows the woman from the painting walking into the room, sitting at the desk, breathing rather too hard, and with her hands covering her face, she begins to sob. Marc Quinn's fast-frozen flower landscapes show that human will has prevailed over nature, but at the expense of life, and are also represented in the Deutsche Bank Collection. But, Deutsche Bank are no longer here...
In the work of Daisy Delaney Sterling has been destroyed. In the corner of the room is an estate agent's board, well recognisable in these parts. Reminiscent of the City Arms, a silver Gryphon
glitters, below a phone number, which, if you ring it, will connect you directly to the Bank of England, a few streets away; and therein may lie some answers.
