BERLIN (AFP).- Germany's top bank, Deutsche Bank, said Monday it would continue to run a museum for contemporary art in Berlin without its erstwhile partner, New York's Guggenheim Foundation.

From April 2013, the Deutsche Guggenheim on Berlin's stately Unter den Linden boulevard will be renamed the Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle and operate under new management, the bank said in a statement.

Deutsche Bank started its partnership with the Guggenheim Foundation in 1997 and the Berlin museum has welcomed around 140,000 visitors each year.

"Our Kunsthalle should be a place where young, promising talent can be seen first," Deutsche Bank board member Stefan Krause said in a statement which called Berlin the "focal point" of its cultural sponsorship.

The final joint exhibition between Deutsche Bank and Guggenheim, called "Visions of Modernity", opens this week.

The Kunsthalle will honour Pakistan's Imran Qureshi as Artist of the Year 2013 and feature his first solo show.

The Guggenheim Foundation ran an urban design "laboratory" in Berlin in partnership with German automaker BMW in June and July. The project is to visit nine cities in six years.

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