Ladies and Gentlemen

The Zentrum Paul Klee designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano in Bern, the new cultural highlight of the Swiss Federal capital, will be opening its doors to the public on Monday, 20 June 2005.

Three architectonic waves in steel and glass, set in a gently modulated landscape sculpture covering an area of 2.5 hectares, are home to the world’s most important monographic collection of a world-ranking pictorial artist with more than 4,000 works by Klee. Based on Paul Klee’s own interdisiciplinary work, the Zentrum Paul Klee will present pictorial art, music, theatre, literature and art popularization with examples taken from all these branches.

On 17 June 2005, three days before the official opening, media representatives will be invited to a preview on the occasion of a media conference. Please book the date in your diary now. Just six months before the inauguration, we would like to keep you up to date with the progress of the work.

Inauguration

The official event marking the handover of the entire collection of the Maurice E. and Martha Müller Foundation (which sponsored the building) to the Stiftung Zentrum Paul Klee (the operator) will be held on 21 June 2005.

The inauguration ceremonies will extend over a period of some two weeks between 20 June and 3 July. Together with its main sponsors, the Zentrum Paul Klee will be offering an inaugural program to the population. This program is designed to supplement the attraction of Paul Klee’s art and Renzo Piano’s architecture. Full details of the program will be announced in April 2005.

Progress of the work / Opening of the Zentrum Paul Klee

On 15 November 2004, the administrative staff of the Zentrum Paul Klee management was able to move into their permanent workplaces on the South Hill of the Zentrum Paul Klee. Taking its inspiration from a work by Paul Klee, the new address is called “Monument im Fruchtland” (Monument in a Fertile Country). The staff of the Paul-Klee-Stiftung will soon also be moving into their new space and their establishment will be renamed the Stiftung Zentrum Paul Klee at the end of the year. For over fifty years, the Paul-Klee-Stiftung, based at the Bern Art Museum, was the central scientific agency responsible for issues surrounding Paul Klee. In mid-January 2005, the Central Hill (presentation of the collection and temporary exhibitions) will be handed over to the administration by the architects, while the North Hill (Auditorium, Forum, Seminar rooms, children’s museum Kindermuseum Creaviva, Café and Workshops) will be ready for occupation in mid-March 2005. The multifunctional Museum Street – a zone for leisurely strolls and communication – will also be completed by March 2005.

Inaugural exhibition – No day without a line

The words “Nulla dies sine linea” (Pliny) – however they are translated: 'No day without a drawing/line; no time without writing' – was noted by Paul Klee in his register of works in 1938 under work number 365, a drawing entitled Süchtig (Addicted ). Klee’s late work is typified by an incomparable proliferation of creative activity, especially in the area of drawings. On 2 January 1940, Paul Klee wrote the following words to his friend, the art historian Will Grohmann: "A rich year in painterly terms. I have never drawn so much and so intensively. Twelve hundred numbers in the year 39 must surely be a record performance."

At the inaugural exhibition, the criterion of quantity will be conceptually structured, thematized as a cycle and staged as a counterweight to the presentation of a collection. The choice will be put together from a comprehensive treasure-trove of calligraphic pencil and wash drawings and paste colouring sheets revealing the background to Klee’s life experience and world view. These levels of his work are generally less well known to the public. A relationship is established between individual coloured works or panel paintings and these drawings.

Paul Klee ended his life’s work in the year of his death 1940 with work number 366. Was this a concept in its own right, 1940 being a leap year? Klee ended his work register with the work numbers for a full year, a biographical criterion which establishes a relationship with the diary-like character of his oeuvre and the sentence ‘nulla dies sine linea’ which refers to the day of the year – an association with the day being preserved for all time.

With the inaugural exhibition (around 120 works) and the presentation of the collection (around 300 works), a personal dialogue will be opened with Paul Klee in two decidedly heterogeneous forms of presentation whose interactions intensify the perception of Klee and enhance the experience of his art. The Zentrum Paul Klee accordingly places Paul Klee at the heart of its first displays on an exclusively monographic basis.

Program of temporary exhibitions

Planning work on temporary exhibitions for the years 2006 and 2007 has already begun. During this period the temporary exhibitions on show will include: “Traum des Lebens” (Dream of life) (a one-man exhibition of Max Beckmann’s work) and “To be or not to be” (Andy Warhol / Paul Klee). Then there will be two further exhibitions showing works from the Centre’s own collections, together with works by contemporary artists.

Publications

The following publications will be available in time for the inauguration: “The Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern” (History of the Paul-Klee Foundation, Presentation of the Centre’s Collection, History of the Project and Presentation of the Concept of the Paul Klee-Zentrum with its Interdisciplinary Approaches); a “short guide” to the Zentrum Paul Klee, an architectural publication (late July 2005) and a catalogue of the inaugural exhibition. These publications will be issued by Hatje Cantz in German, French and English, and will also be available from booksellers.

Museum Street

In the medium-term, Paul Klee’s entire life’s work (10,000 works) will be available for consultation by the public in the Museum Street at the Zentrum Paul Klee on the electronic pictorial database. The works are currently being indexed and networked by thematic area. The Museum Street is the background to communication at the Zentrum Paul Klee and also an attractive opportunity for a leisurely stroll. The café, shop, an impressive library, together with the reception area and congress administration, are also located in the Museum Street zone.

Financing

The total investment costs amount to CHF 110 million Swiss francs. Of this figure, CHF 60 million are private resources from the family of the renowned orthopaedic surgeon, Prof. Dr. Maurice E. Müller, CHF 32 million have been put up by sponsors and CHF 18 million contributed by the Bern Cantonal Lottery Fund. The public authorities will be covering around 50 per cent of the anticipated annual running costs while the remainder will have to be generated by the Zentrum Paul Klee itself.

Further information

Further information about the collection, the history of the project, the founding families, the sponsors and the concept and versatile program of the Zentrum Paul Klee will be found on our website.

The latest pictorial material is available on our media database:

www.zpk.org/mdb

We very much look forward to welcoming you soon and often at the Centre. We will be happy to provide further information at any time.

Yours sincerely,

Ursina Barandun

Head of Communications and Public Relations