Hello World: Revising a Collection

Description

What could the primarily Western collection of the Nationalgalerie look like today if a global understanding of art had informed its development? Looking at artworks from non-European centres of Modernism and their activities, untold stories and overlooked connections are picked up and developed. The Nationalgalerie Berlin subjects its collection to a critical revision, focusing on those areas of the collection which are not central to a Western understanding of art. Starting points include Heinrich Vogeler's turn to the Soviet Union, the Dadaist Tomoyoshi Murayama's sojourn in 1920s Berlin, and Joseph Beuys' collaborations with Nicolas Garcia Uriburu. The result is a narrative of art from 1900 to the present which, from a global perspective, selectively takes up and explores historical, international, and transregional connections between artists and cultural contexts.

Udo Kittelmann is a German curator and museum director of the National Gallery in Berlin and the author of numerous books and other publications about contemporary and modern art.