This exhibition is the first to give a comprehensive view of the consequences of the First World War on Paul Klee’s work with reference to selected pictures from all phases of his career. In both artistic and biographical terms it was a time of profound upheavals. The war robbed Klee of many of his artist friends. Thrown back on his own devices, he continued to pursue his art. He commented on the political situation in his works and at the same time turned increasingly towards abstraction.

The exhibition "10 Americans" is the very first substantial show to illustrate the impact of Paul Klee′s work on mid-twentieth-century U.S. art. Ten selected American artists, including notables such as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell and Mark Tobey, will bear eloquent and impressive testimony to the extent to which these artists were inspired by Klee′s artistic concepts and practices.

Referring to a statement Paul Klee famously made in 1920 in his “Creative Confession”: “Art does not reproduce the visible; rather it makes visible”, the exhibition features thematically related treasures from Zentrum Paul Klee′s unique collection.

Zentrum Paul Klee and Kunstmuseum Bern dedicate their joint exhibition "The Revolution is dead. Long live the Revolution!" to the 100th anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. It is the only exhibition in the anniversary year that focuses both on the starting point of the revolution – that is, abstraction as an artistic concept and Constructivism′s aesthetic revolution – and on the impact of the revolution on artistic representations of reality and the critical examinition of it.

Should all be known?

“Should all be known? oh, I think not” – Those were the words Paul Klee inscribed on one of his very last – never completed – works. The exhibition takes a fresh look at Klee, the painter who was also a poet, word acrobat, philosopher – and much more besides.