The world keeps growing smaller, countries keep moving closer and closer together; once disparate cultures now overlap, influencing each other more and more. This is an ironclad fact, even if art theory still manages to sneak past a comparative investigation of the art of various cultures.

“Kulturen—Verwandtschaften in Geist und Form” (Cultures — relations in spirit and form) made an attempt to deal with the art of diverse eras and cultures within the four small rooms of this gallery. It was successful chiefly because juxtapositions defied all conventional criteria. Contemporary paintings and