As artists, they were self-taught and created a cosmos of images that still captivates us today with its sensual immediacy and has made a lasting mark in art history on the work of non-academically trained artists: Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), Camille Bombois (1883-1970), Andre Bauchant (1873-1958), Louis Vivin (1861-1939) and Seraphine Louis (1864-1942). They are counted among the so-called circle of the "painters of the sacred heart"; their scenarios, often borrowed from nature, especially flowers and fruits, but also people in parks and landscapes, indicate a closeness to nature, a sensitive approach to the things of the immediate environment, with which they apparently sought to escape the coldness of uprising modernism. These French pioneers of authentic art were discovered by the German art historian Wilhelm Uhde (1874-1947), who organized their first joint exhibition in Paris in 1928.

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.