Dance is communication. From contemporary collaborations or the first happenings of the Japanese Butoh dancers and the pioneers of Modern dance, Global Groove explores the cultural history of contact between the West and the Far East. Global Groove is going back even to the early performances by Asian dancers in Europe around 1900. Photographs, paintings, sculptures, films and live actions reveal the role played by the language of dance in the political and cultural transformation of societies.

From Renoir to Monet to Gauguin – French Impressionism was not only appreciated by Western collectors at the beginning of the 20th century – it also found an early following in Japan. In 2022, on the occasion of its 100th anniversary, the Museum Folkwang will show its outstanding post-impressionist collection founded by Karl Ernst Osthaus (1874–1921). The museum collection will be supplemented by Impressionist highlights from the Kojiro Matsukata Collection (1865–1950), which laid the foundation for the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo. This is the first time this collection will be presented comprehensively outside Japan since the 1950s. The catalog features a unique compilation of about 120 works and introduces two important collectors. Transnational collection history is combined with modern masterpieces. Featuring paintings, drawings and sculptures by Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Auguste Rodin, among others, as well as a new installation by Tabaimo and Chiharu Shiota and a selection of East Asian works from the former holdings of Matsukata and Osthaus. Accompanied by a short story by Japanese bestselling author Sayaka Murata.