Ongoing research projects

The Zentrum Paul Klee collaborates with art historians and philosophers in a research group on Klee's reception in philosophy.

No other 20th-century artist has been the subject of such systematic yet heterogeneous philosophical reflection as Paul Klee. Already during the First World War, Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch used his work as a source for thinking about utopias. After the war, Klee’s work became the subject of a wide variety of approaches: phenomenology, metaphorology sociology, semiotics, critical theory, and the political thought of art. Among the most well-known philosophers who have referenced Klee are Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Martin Heidegger, Hans Blumenberg, and Gilles Deleuze. Finally, in the wake of Benjamin's reading of Klee's Angelus Novus as the Angel of History the research group studies various philosophies of history (Agamben, Derrida, Kluge, among others) in their relation to art.

Coordination: Toni Hildebrandt (Zentrum Paul Klee/University of Bern) and Maria Stavrinaki (University of La

 

In collaboration with

The Zentrum Paul Klee, together with the Zapurza Museum for Art & Culture and the Goethe-Institut Max Mueller Bhavan in Pune, India, is developing a dialogue between the thoughts and creations of Paul Klee and Prabhakar Barwe (1936-1995). Barwe is a painter of the second wave of Indian modernism in Maharashtra and engaged with Paul Klee's work. Paul Klee's works were first exhibited in India in a Bauhaus exhibition in Calcutta in 1922.

In an exhibition at the Zapurza Museum for Art & Culture Pune in autumn/winter 2026/27, curated by Raju Satar and Mira Hirtz, the works of both artists will meet for the first time. By viewing modernism and abstract art as global phenomena, the exhibition project invites a nuanced consideration of the relationship between the two artists. It examines similarities and differences in the artistic principles that the artists engaged with not only in their painting but also in their writings. Therefore, excerpts from their writings will also be part of the exhibition, along with information about the artists and their respective cultural work and life contexts. To make the artistic thinking of both artists more accessible, writings by Paul Klee will be translated into Marathi and texts by Prabhakar Barwe into English and published.

With this project, the Zentrum Paul Klee promotes transcultural exchange and contributes to understanding modernism as a global phenomenon.

Learn more: Intersections & Intervention: Barwe & Klee

In collaboration with

Raju Sutar (Zapurza Museum, Pune), Marianne Keller Tschirren (Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern), Karin Zitzewitz (University of Maryland)       

Raju Sutar talks about Prabhakar Barwe (1936–1995), a painter of the second wave of Indian modernism from Maharashtra, and Marianne Keller Tschirren talks about Paul Klee (1879–1940). Both lectures deal with the concept of form and the artists' processes of form-finding: in his work, Barwe uses surrealist and neo-tantric means to understand form as a matter of thought and feeling, while Klee concentrated on growth processes in nature.

Rebecca M. Brown (Johns Hopkins University, Maryland), Jo Ziebritzki (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)

Rebecca M. Brown explains modernism and abstraction as global phenomena with a focus on India and Germany/Switzerland. In many common interpretations of art history, modern art outside Europe and the USA has formed an independent, separate modernism, which in Western-influenced art historiography has been regarded as backward, as an imitation of what came before, and as a struggle for originality. This lecture opens up a more complex perspective and deals with the intercultural exchange between Germany/Switzerland and India. 
Following the lecture, art historian Jo Ziebritzki will contribute her critical thoughts on the topic.