Paul Klee: “Irony at Work” Retrospective.. at the Centre Pompidou…

Featuring around two hundred and fifty works loaned by the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern and various major international and private collections, this Centre Pompidou retrospective aims to cast a fresh look on Klee’s work by shedding light on the way he used irony through an approach which has its origins in early German Romanticism, constituting a “constant shift between a satire and the affirmation of an absolute, finite and infinite, real and ideal“.

This fascinating use of irony by the artist in his artworks was inspired by the philosopher Friedrich Schlegel: “Everything in it must be a joke, and everything must be serious: everything must be offered up with an open heart, and profoundly concealed.”

The “Irony at Work” theme of the exhibition also extends to the examination of Klee‘s relationship with, and inspiration by, his peers: most notably Wassily Kandinsky, Robert Delaunay, Maurice de Vlaminck, and Pablo Picasso, as well as the artistic movements of his time.

The exhibition is divided into seven thematic sections highlighting each stage in Klee‘s artistic development: “Satirical beginnings“, which describes his early years; “Klee and Cubism“; “Mechanical theatre“, in line with Dada and Surrealism; “Klee and Constructivism“, his Bauhaus years in Dessau; “Looking back“, his 1930’s years; “Klee and Picasso“, which examines Klee’s reaction after the Picasso retrospective in Zurich in 1932; and “The crisis years“, marked by Nazi policies, war and illness.

Organised in partnership with the Goethe-Institut of Paris and the Centre Allemand d’Histoire de l’Art, an international symposium on recent research into Klee’s work, featuring international specialists, is being held at the same venue on the 19th and 20th of May 2016.

The “Paul Klee: L’Ironie à l’oeuvre” retrospective is showing at the Centre Pompidou until the 1st of August, 2016.

Centre Pompidou
Place Georges-Pompidou
75004 Paris