Cover Star Klee
Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern
7 June - 14 September 2025
Photo courtesy Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern
Why do so many 20th-century books – hundreds, if not thousands – about philosophy, psychotherapy or critical theory have Paul Klee’s art on the cover? Within the context of the dynamic permanent exhibition "Kosmos Klee. The Collection", the Zentrum Paul Klee devotes itself to this question. Featuring just over 150 books and 27 original drawings and paintings from the collection of the Zentrum Paul Klee, the Fokus exhibition honours the fascinating influence of Klee’s work on the 20th-century imagination.
Was ist Politik?, Piper Verlag, 2003
Paul Klee
gewägt wägend [Daringly Balanced], 1930, 144
Watercolour and pen on paper on cardboard
31 × 24,5/23,5 cm
Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern
Psychology and Experience
Cambridge University Press, 2005
Paul Klee
Bruderschaft [Brotherhood], 1939, 952
Pencil on paper on cardboard, 21 × 29,5 cm
Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern
Systematische Theologie, calwer Verlag, 2002
Paul Klee
Blick aus Rot [Glance Out of Red], 1937, 211
Pastel on cotton on coloured paste in burlap;
reconstructed frame 47 × 50 cm
Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, donation of Livia Klee
A Guide to Ethics and Moral Philosophy
Edinburgh University Press, 2017
Paul Klee
Insula dulcamara, 1938, 481
Oil and coloured paste on paper on burlap
88 × 176 cm
Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern
The works of Paul Klee enjoy lasting popularity among authors and publishers within the field of the human sciences in the 20th century. They adorn the covers of books from the spheres of philosophy, sociology and theology, as well as psychology and psychotherapy. Paul Klee has established himself as the painter par excellence for philosophers, thinkers and theorists. His works bring to life the verbal world of abstract thought, and visualize concepts such as ‘reason’, ‘revelation’ or ‘risk’ which are difficult to imagine in pictorial terms. The Fokus exhibition juxtaposes selected book covers with their originals from the collection of the Zentrum Paul Klee, and invites the viewer to judge a book by its cover.
The books with works by Paul Klee on their covers include treatises by well-known representatives of the Frankfurt School such as Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin. Klee’s visual language reflects central experiences of modern philosophy, and associates with concepts of critical theory. Klee’s works also seem to be particularly popular for the covers of psychological and psychotherapeutic textbooks. Their high level of openness encourages a wide range of possible interpretations.
The Fokus exhibition has been assembled by guest curator Dieter Roelstraete. It is based on his book Kleine Welt, published in 2020. Dieter Roelstraete is curator at the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago. His curatorial interests lie in the relationship between art and politics, art as a form of knowledge, art as intellectual work and the conception of exhibitions as a form of writing. In the preface to his book Dieter Roelstraete explains how he came to this subject:
‘This project [...] is rooted in a twofold observation that recurs every time I pack and unpack my library. First, why do authors and/or publishers in the field of twentiethcentury philosophy and capital-T Theory so often turn to Paul Klee – indeed, often even the same Paul Klee painting, over and over again – to adorn the covers of their books? [...] What precisely, powers this force? Why Klee?’ --Dieter Roelstraete, from the preface to his book Kleine Welt, p. 5–6
Curator: Dieter Roelstraete
ZENTRUM PAUL KLEE
Monument im Fruchtland 3, 3006 Bern