Free guided tours at the Green Room
Special exhibition: “Controversial”

“Controversial” is the theme of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s 2025/26 season. In a time marked by intense social debate, the question arises: does polarization still allow space for dialogue and understanding. This season centers on engaging with contradictions and embracing polyphony – in music and in art.

As a longstanding partner of the Berliner Philharmoniker, Deutsche Bank presents two series of works by artist Cornelia Schleime from its corporate collection, on view in the Philharmonie’s Green Room. The work of the artist, born in Berlin in 1953, encompasses painting, drawing, performance, and film. Her art revolves around aspects of identity, physicality, and the role of women, often with a critical view of societal norms. Shaped by her experiences in the GDR, she addresses themes of freedom and repression, navigating the tension between sell-assertion and external control.

The 14-part series “To Further Good Cooperation” (1993) was created in response to Schleime’s discovery of her Stasi surveillance. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, she learned that acquaintances had spied on her. Through overpainting and collages, she transforms this personal trauma into a meditation on power, control, and betrayal, exploring the fraught space between individual agency and systemic pressure. These works are shown alongside photo overpaints from the 1990s, in which Schleime alters photographs of monumental GDR locations and film stills, including the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin’s Treptower Park, turning them into poetically surreal dreamscapes.

For Schleime, this is a form of solace: “Beauty, so as not to go mad from the ugly truth.” Cornelia Schleime’s work prompts reflection on both past and present, revealing how controversy can open space for transformation, insight, and dialogue. Cornelia Schleime studied painting in Dresden, was active in the GDR subculture. and relocated to West Berlin in 1984. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at PS1 in New York (1989), the Albertinum in Dresden (2012), and in a retrospective at the Berlinische Galerie (2022). She has received numerous awards, including the Gabriele Münter Prize (2003) and the Brandenburg Art Prize (2024). In 2025, her artistic achievements were honored with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the B.Z. Culture Prize. Schleime lives and works in Berlin and Brandenburg.

Deutsche Bank began collecting Schleime’s work in 1993; its collection now includes around 50 pieces. Most recently, her works were featured in the 2025 exhibition “It’s just a Matter of Time” at PalaisPopulaire.