40 Years of the Deutsche Bank Collection
Max Bill: Thought as Pure Form

Max Bill’s twisted granite sculpture “Continuity,” Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s installation "The Gates" in New York's Central Park, Cao Fei’s vision of a virtual, futuristic setting in the middle of nowhere: On a monthly basis, we show a work that represents a period of contemporary history and reflects the Deutsche Bank Collection, which is celebrating its 40th birthday this year.


Max Bill
Continuity, 1986

� VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020


It weighs a whopping 66 tons. Yet this is not the only reason why Max Bill’s sculpture Continuity is a heavyweight in the Deutsche Bank Collection. It also stands symbolically for the bank’s continuous commitment to art for 40 years now. In a green rea next to the Deutsche Bank Towers in Frankfurt, the endless loop is reflected in a surface of water and can thus unfold its fascinating effect. The water link references the original version of the work, destroyed in 1948, Bill’s plaster model Infinite Loop, which was placed directly on Lake Zurich. In the early 1980s, a Deutsche Bank commission offered the artist the unique opportunity to realize the lost work in a modified and larger form as a granite sculpture. The sculpture, based on two parallel M�bius strips, is probably the best-known work by Bill, who died in 1994. As a representative of Concrete Art and founder of the famous Hochschule f�r Gestaltung in Ulm, the Bauhaus student was interested in creating works based on geometric principles without any symbolic meaning, works that materialize thought as pure form.