“Everything will be Klee,” wrote Paul Klee (1879-1940) in his diary at the beginning of his career. In fact, he created a distinctive body of work, a diverse and fascinating universe that establishes his status as one of the most important artists of the early 20th century.
The bizarre cheerfulness, imaginative ambiguity and musical-poetic expressiveness of his works, in which the abstract and the figurative merge in a unique way, make him one of the greatest individualists among the modern artists of his time. At the same time, Klee was a master of the universal: he saw art as a mirror of the cosmos, whose creative principles he found in all areas of life. The entirety of his work presents itself as a universal encyclopedia of man, compressed into a small format: his life cycle and his environment, his culture and idea constructs, his emotional worlds and all his creative and destructive powers.
The exhibition takes you on a great journey through “The Klee Universe”. Around 250 masterpieces from all creative phases allow Paul Klee's visual cosmos to be experienced in fifteen thematic sections. The human life cycle, from birth to death, marks the beginning and end of the exhibition tour. Between these two poles of existence, childhood, Eros and parental roles are just as important to the stages of existence as war and illness. Theater and music, architecture and writing illuminate the many facets of cultural life. The world of animals and nature expands the view of earthly forms of existence, while detours to distant countries and fantastic landscapes define the geographical expanse of the globe. Each exhibition chapter offers a chronological cross-section of Klee's work and highlights specific aspects of his artist biography. Humor and pain, autonomy and fate are often very close together in Klee's universe.