Paul Klee, Insecten, 1919, 114 (detail), Collection E.W.K.,

Paul Klee. Animal Life

September 5 to November 8, 2020

Kunstforum Ingelheim – Old Town Hall

Kunstforum Ingelheim – Old Town Hall →
COVID-19 information →

In 1904, Paul Klee wrote in his diary: “There are two mountains on which it is bright and clear: the mountain of animals and the mountain of gods. But between them lies the twilight valley of humans.” With these lines, Paul Klee describes his view of animals, which he places on a par with the divine. In Klee’s extensive artistic oeuvre, there are countless depictions of animals. They range from exploring nature and creating mysterious creatures to humorous commentaries on the complex relationship between humans and animals. Klee is inspired by nature’s infinite diversity of forms and demonstrates his imagination by inventing hybrids and new species of animals.

Klee also reflects on the differences between humans and animals, observing and exploring typical roles, characteristics, and behaviours in his works. With his profoundly human animals and animal-like humans, he questions our understanding of humans and animals and creates a disconcerting, often light-hearted to ironic distance. The understanding of this distinctive artistic world is also illustrated by the idiosyncratic, often ironic titles the artist gives each work, without steering the viewer’s imagination in a single direction.

The Internationale Tage Ingelheim present Klee’s animal universe for the first time in Germany. In doing so, they highlight many facets of the relationships between humans and animals—and vice versa. They show the intensity and playful depth with which the Swiss-born Bauhaus artist Paul Klee (1879–1940) emphasised the animal in the human and the human in the animal throughout his entire artistic work. The exhibition is organised into thematic groups of works, such as humans and animals, hybrids, cats (Klee’s favourite animal), birds, and the URCHS, an animal species invented by the artist.

The loans—primarily works on paper, some of which have rarely been shown publicly to date—are provided by the Zentrum Paul Klee, supplemented by important loans from public collections as well as private owners. Due to the works’ conservational fragility and sensitivity to light, this exhibition will be shown only in Ingelheim as part of the Internationale Tage.

The exhibition is a cooperation with the Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern.