The exhibition "Paul Klee. Animality" at the Zentrum Paul Klee

19.10.18 - 17.03.19

Cats, birds, fish and fantastic hybrids populate the Zentrum Paul Klee in October. For the first time, a Paul Klee exhibition provides a glimpse of the relationship between humans and animals. Then and now, our dealings with animals are diverse and contradictory. Animals are feared, trained, pampered or slaughtered. Paul Klee thought intensely about the roles and nature of animals and human beings and commented critically upon their qualities.

Paul Klee, The Torso and Kin (at full moon), 1939, 256,
watercolour on primed burlap; original frame, 65 x 50 cm, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern

In every phase of his work Paul Klee took an interest in animals. In his view, the study of nature was one of the central principles of artistic creation. He collected seaweed, snail shells and sea-shells and displayed them in his studio. As a precise observer, he often discovered the animal in human beings, and the human being in animals, and reversed the traditional roles. In his works humans «turn animal», while animals display human traits. Like the authors of antique animal fables, Klee comments on political events through wildlife, and his zoological scenes humorously show us human behaviour.

Birds and fish assume a special place in Klee’s bestiary. They exerted a particular fascination on him because unlike humans, who are bound to the earth by gravity, they can move completely freely in air or water. This gives them their own territories which are difficult for humans to access. Apart from that Klee’s zoos are populated by fantastical inventions of hybrid creatures like the doubletail-three-ears, mythological sphinxes and ungainly urchses.

Klee’s cats occupied a central place not only in his life, but also in his work. He tried to immortalize his favourite animals in more than 250 mostly blurred photographs. In letters to his wife Lily he regularly had his cats Fritzi and Bimbo pass on «pawprints and coldwet nose-kisses».

The exhibition brings together some 130 works from the holdings of the collection of the Zentrum Paul Klee, many of which are being shown for the first time. Loans from Bern Natural History allow the public to engage in the immediate study of animals on Klee’s traces.

The curators Fabienne Eggelhofer and Myriam Dossegger are at your disposal for individual previews and interviews.

Exhibition opening: 18.10.2018, 6:30 pm

Curators
Fabienne Eggelhofer, Chief Curator Zentrum Paul Klee Myriam Dossegger, Cocurator of the exhibition

More on www.zpk.org