“Where lies the origin of art?" The German ethnologist Leo Frobenius pursued this question at the beginning of the 20th century. Over two dozen expeditions led him and his research teams to the cave paintings of Europe, Africa and Asia. Artists were also part of the expedition teams. They produced over 8,000 painted recreations of these sensational pictorial worlds, which lead 30,000 years into the past. To this day, they are still in the possession of the Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt am Main.

The discovery of cave paintings was a key experience for modern artists. Many were inspired by these primal beginnings of art. They adopted abstract forms of representation and stylistic devices from rock paintings and were convinced that this would bring them closer to the anthropological core of art. Alfred H. Barr, founding director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, recognized this connection between modernism and prehistoric times and first exhibited the Frobenius Collection alongside works of contemporary art in 1937.

The Frobenius-Institute for Cultural Anthropological Research at Goethe University Frankfurt is one of the most important ethnologically oriented research institutes in the German-speaking world. Its mission is to expand cultural anthropological knowledge and to promote a reflective approach to cultural difference through scientific dialog. In order to achieve these goals, the Frobenius Institute regularly conducts field research worldwide, processes and expands its extensive archives and collections, publishes scientific findings through its own series and the journal Paideuma, promotes a well-founded reflection on the history of the discipline and curates international exhibitions on a variety of topics.

The Frobenius Institute stands for the ethical handling of artifacts. In close cooperation with the indigenous communities, it researches their provenance, use and significance. In this way, the Frobenius Institute makes an important contribution to research into cultural diversity in the present and past. With its cultural anthropological orientation, it also overcomes the widespread distinction between research in European and non-European countries.