K21 – Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is dedicated to international contemporary art. Here, the Kunstsammlung presents works from the collection by artists such as Ai Weiwei (b. 1957) and Hito Steyerl (b. 1966), who deal concretely with current social or political events. With the expansive installation Laundromatfrom 2016, Ai Weiwei responds to the theme of flight and migration, which had a particular topicality in the year the work was created and continues to move the world to this day. Similarly historical is the computer-simulated video installation Social Sim by Hito Steyerl from 2020, which the Kunstsammlung acquired from the artist’s exhibition at K21. A key historical figure with regard to politically and socially motivated art is Joseph Beuys (1921–1986), whose works are on view at K20 and to whom the Kunstsammlung is dedicating a major exhibition in March 2021. Already in the early modernism of the twentieth century, however, artists also critically dealt with their social environment; among these are protagonists such as George Grosz (1893–1959) and Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948), who addressed the problematic relationships of the individual in an increasingly capitalistic society in the years between the two world wars.