BERN.- In 2025, the Zentrum Paul Klee turns 20 years old. The anniversary is being celebrated with an annual programme full of special highlights: at the centre of this are a large exhibition on the architect and artist Le Corbusier and a spectacular retrospective devoted to the textile artist Anni Albers. Both figures had a major impact on the art, design and architecture of the 20th century. In the summer, the Zentrum Paul Klee is showing the nonconformist, fascinating work of the British artist Rose Wylie. The permanent exhibition Kosmos Klee will focus on Paul Klee’s relationship with music, Klee as a ‘cover star’ and the German- Venezuelan artist Gertrud Goldschmidt, known as Gego.

As one of the most influential protagonists in modern art and architecture, Le Corbusier tried to reorder the world with unbridled creativity, and to design a new living environment through functional and aesthetic architecture. The exhibition at the Zentrum Paul Klee places three-dimensional thought and design – the prelude to architecture and the artistic experiment – at the centre.

The textile artist Anni Albers is one of the most important figures in the art and design of the 20th century. Her creative career began at the Bauhaus in the 1920s, and reached its peak after her emigration to the USA, where she established herself with painterly woven works and the development of textiles for buildings. The exhibition in the Zentrum Paul Klee is concentrated on this connection between textile and architecture.

Rose Wylie’s nonconformist, fascinating work occupies a unique place in the contemporary art scene. The large-format paintings are a mixture of figurative representations, abstraction and stories in pictures, in which the artist engages with pop culture, literature and history. With works from the last thirty years, the exhibition provides an insight into the untamed work of an artist who crosses conventional boundaries.

Permanent exhibition Kosmos Klee and Fokus exhibition series

Within the context of the permanent exhibition Kosmos Klee, the Zentrum Paul Klee is showing Fokus exhibitions with content relating to Paul Klee and his work. In the 2025 Fokus series, exhibitions are planned to concentrate on the mutual influence between Paul Klee’s art and music, and works by Klee on book covers. The Zentrum Paul Klee is also showing the first Swiss solo show by Gego, the pioneer of abstraction in Latin America, Gertrud Goldschmidt.

Music and literature

Apart from the exhibitions, the Zentrum Paul Klee is offering a varied special interest programme. Les Vents Français with Emmanuel Pahud, star harpist Xavier de Maistre, the Canadian Bach specialist Angela Hewitt, the French- Italian mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre and Ensemble Jupiter Paris, under the direction of lutenist Thomas Dunford, maestro Grigory Sokolov, the trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary and the accordionist Félicien Brut, as well as many other top-ranking musicians, invite visitors to a series of ‘master concerts’.

In the first half of 2025, Roger de Weck, the winner of Deutscher Buchpreis 2024, Martina Hefter, Thea Mengele as well as Swiss authors Margrit Schriber and Martin R. Dean are presenting their latest literary works in the context of the series of readings.

Le Corbusier. The Order of Things 8.2.–22.6.2025

To coincide with its 20-year anniversary, the Zentrum Paul Klee is devoting a major exhibition to the Swiss-French artist-architect Le Corbusier (1887– 1965). One of the most influential protagonists of modern architecture and art, Le Corbusier tried to harness his unbridled creativity and enormous energy to reshape the world according to his ideas, to ‘order’ it and create a new living environment through functional and aesthetic architecture. Today, some of his buildings are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The exhibition is based around Le Corbusier’s three-dimensional thought and design. The prelude to the architecture is at the centre: the artistic experiment in the ‘workshop of patient research’, as Le Corbusier described his artistic work; feeling one’s way gradually towards the architectural form in studies and plans; the artistic engagement with colour and form, composition and space – and the sources that flow into the process: from found objects on the beach to the architecture of classical antiquity.

Curator
Martin Waldmeier

Rose Wylie. Flick and Float 19.7.–5.10.2025

Rose Wylie. Flick and Float presents the nonconformist and fascinating work of the British artist Rose Wylie (b. 1934). She has won global recognition with her unique artistic practice and wide range of themes. Wylie’s large-format paintings are a mixture of figurative representation, abstraction and stories in pictures. Expressive, direct and filled with subversive humour, they bear witness to the artist’s engagement with pop culture, literature, history and personal experiences. Wylie’s artistic language is deliberately simple, and recalls the aesthetic of ‘Bad Painting’ and Post-Pop. With works from the last thirty years, the exhibition provides an insight into the untamed œuvre of an artist who overcomes conventional boundaries and occupies a unique place in the contemporary art scene. Individual works are also being painted specially for the exhibition in Bern, and shown to the public for the first time.

Curator
Fabienne Eggelhöfer

Anni Albers. Constructing Textiles 7.11.2025–22.2.2026

Anni Albers (1889–1994) is one of the most important figures in the art and design of the 20th century. Her creative and experimental career began in the 1920s in the Bauhaus, where she took lessons with Paul Klee. She emigrated to the USA in 1933, establishing herself there as a weaver, textile designer and visual artist. Aside from her painterly woven works, which can be seen as autonomous art works, Albers devoted herself to the development of new textiles for buildings and interior spaces, so-called ‘utility objects’. She viewed weaving as the most progressive form of modern architectural thought. The exhibition focuses on the connection between textile and architecture, between weaving and building. With her deep understanding of material and its applications, Albers’s work is highly contemporary and relevant given present day challenges in terms of energy and material resources. It is here that we can see her great significance both as a designer, theorist and innovator in the field of textiles and as a unique artist.

Curators
Fabienne Eggelhöfer and Brenda Danilowitz

Cooperation

The exhibition is a cooperation between the Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, and the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany CT, in collaboration with ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum.

Permanent exhibition Kosmos Klee. The Collection

The dynamic permanent exhibition Kosmos Klee. The Collection offers visitors a chronological survey of Klee’s artistic career and presents some eighty works as well as biographical material and items from the archive that are regularly changed.

Fokus exhibitions

In the context of the permanent exhibition Kosmos Klee, the Zentrum Paul Klee is devoting one Fokus room to smaller exhibitions with a thematic reference to Paul Klee and his work.

Fokus. The Musical Klee 22.2.–1.6.2025

Paul Klee is distinguished by his twin talents as an artist and a musician. As a young man already, he played the violin in the city orchestra, and it was difficult for him to make the decision between music and art. He chose visual art because in that field he saw more opportunities to create something completely new. In his works he transposed musical aspects such as rhythm, melody and polyphony into art, and also taught this at the Bauhaus. Even today many pieces are composed on the basis of his works. The Fokus exhibition addresses this cross-fertilisation.

Curators
Fabienne Eggelhöfer and Marianne Keller Tschirren

Fokus. Cover Star Klee 7.6.–14.9.2025

Why do so many – hundreds, if not thousands of – books of twentieth century philosophy, psychotherapy or critical theory feature the art of Paul Klee on their covers? Cover Star Klee draws a portrait of the artist as a prophet of analogue meme culture, which invites us to judge a book by its cover.

Curator
Dieter Roelstraete

Fokus. Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt) 19.9.2025–18.1.2026

Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt, 1912 in Hamburg–1994 in Caracas, Venezuela) was a German-Venezuelan artist and pioneer of abstraction in Latin America. She is known among other things for her drawings and her filigree, net-like sculptures and installations, which she called Reticuláreas – abstract drawings in space. Gego, born Gertrud Louise Goldschmidt, studied architecture and engineering in Stuttgart during the Nazi period, and was strongly influenced by the ideas of the Bauhaus and modern architecture.

Shortly after graduation she had to flee Germany because of her Jewish origins, and emigrated to Venezuela, where she devoted herself to art and teaching. The exhibition in the Zentrum Paul Klee is Gego’s first solo exhibition in Switzerland, and shows drawings, watercolours, prints and selected sculptures by the artist.

Curator
Martin Waldmeier