BERN.- In 2026, the Zentrum Paul Klee is continuing its series of exhibitions on positions of global modern art and its legacy with three major solo exhibitions. The year opens with a comprehensive exhibition on Kurt Schwitters, who created an unmistakeable synthesis of art, design and literature in his art, and who embodied the spirit of the avant-garde, the upheaval and the artistic freedom of the 1920s like few others. In the autumn, the Zentrum Paul Klee is presenting the work of the Brazilian artist Roberto Burle Marx for the first time in Switzerland. In the first half of the 20th century, Burle Marx revolutionised landscape architecture by transferring compositional principles from painting and music to nature. In the summer, the institution is showing the monumental works of the German painter Anne Loch. In the permanent exhibition Kosmos Klee attention will be devoted to Hans Fischli, Florence Henri and the reverse sides of Klee’s works. Alongside the exhibitions, the Zentrum Paul Klee is offering a top-class programme of readings and concerts.

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) is seen as one of the most significant and influential artists of the avant-garde. His multi-layered work extends from dadaist collages and the walk-through ‘Merzbau’, a predecessor of installation art, to naturalistic portraits and landscapes.

Schwitters was also active as an author, and wrote many experimental texts including manifestos, fairy tales and poems. Schwitters: On the Fringes of the Avant-Garde is the first major Kurt Schwitters exhibition in Switzerland for twenty years. With this presentation, the Zentrum Paul Klee sheds light on his role as an independent artist between the trends of modern art, and combines art, literature and life into a new overall view of the artist.

The large autumn exhibition is devoted to the legendary Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx (1909–1994), who was also painter, graphic artist, sculptor, jewellery designer, stage and costume designer, environmental activist, and collector. He revolutionised landscape architecture in the spirit of the Brazilian avant-garde: using tropical plant varieties from Brazil, he designed gardens and parks reminiscent of abstract paintings.

In close dialogue with the best modern architects and artists of his time, he integrated sculptures, reliefs and murals into his landscape projects and, in his multi-faceted work, advocated the cultural re-evaluation of everything that was considered ‘Brazilian’.

A successful career seemed to be mapped out for her, but then the German artist Anne Loch (1946–2014) retreated and settled in Thusis in Switzerland. Tirelessly and in secret she went on working in the mountains of the Grisons, creating an exciting and mysterious body of work. Her monumental flowers, animals, insects and landscapes only appear idyllic at first glance, and in spite of their size give hardly anything away. The comprehensive solo exhibition Anne Loch. Painting: So what? continues the series of exhibitions of established contemporary positions in painting such as Bridget Riley (2022) or Rose Wylie (2025), and concentrates on Loch’s engagement with the medium and the dissolution of her motifs.

Permanent exhibition Kosmos Klee and Fokus exhibition series

In the context of the Fokus series, in 2026 the Zentrum Paul Klee is showing three presentations as part of the permanent exhibition Kosmos Klee. The first of these is devoted to the Swiss architect, painter and sculptor Hans Fischli (1909–1989), a student of Paul Klee at the Bauhaus. Fischli’s series of drawings Zellengebilde (cell formations), made during a three-month period of imprisonment for refusing military service, serves as the starting point for the presentation, which also addresses the political situation of the 1930s and 1940s. The second presentation invites the viewer to discover the reverse sides of Paul Klee’s works. In around 600 of the artist’s works, there are drawings, watercolours or paintings on the back, which were part of a continuing working process. Finally, in the autumn, the Zentrum Paul Klee is showing a Fokus exhibition on the much-travelled painter, photographer and Bauhaus student Florence Henri (1893–1982).

Music and literature

Apart from the exhibitions, the Zentrum Paul Klee is offering a varied special interest programme. Violinist Daniel Hope, cellist Anastasia Kobekina with pianist Jean-Sélim Abdelmoula as well as guitarist Miloš Karadaglić and many other top-ranking musicians invite visitors to a series of ‘master concerts’.

In the first half of 2026, winner of Leipziger Buchpreis 2025, Kristine Bilkau, winner of Grosser Preis des Deutschen Literaturfonds, Katerina Poladjan, Swiss literary scholar Ilma Rakusa, German-French author Sylvie Schenk as well as journalist and author Daniel Schreiber are presenting their latest literary works in the context of the series of readings.

Schwitters: On the Fringes of the Avant-Garde
20.3.–21.6.2026

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) is one of the most significant representatives of the international artistic avant-garde of the interwar years. He was a wilful crossover artist, who created an unmistakeable synthesis of art, design and literature in his art. At the centre of his work was the principle of collage as an attempt to create new contexts of meaning from the contradictory everyday reality of modern life, and to counter the chaos of the world with a poetic order. The exhibition shows Schwitters’ multi-layered work of dadaist collages and his reconstructed walk-through ‘Merzbau’ in Hanover to naturalistic portraits and landscape paintings. It illuminates his creative resilience in exile and his role as an independent artist and author between the different trends of modern art. With Schwitters: On the Fringes of the Avant-Garde the Zentrum Paul Klee is showing the first comprehensive exhibition on Kurt Schwitters in Switzerland for twenty years.

Anne Loch. Painting: So what?
18.7.–20.9.2026

The German artist Anne Loch (1946–2014), who lived partly in Switzerland from the 1980s onwards, played with the conventions of representation and plumbed the limits of painting: in monumental paintings of mountains, flowers, animals and insects, she creates a quiet tension. What seems at first glance idyllic and even clichéd, on closer inspection eludes unambiguous description. Boundaries between the figurative and the abstract, between painting and drawing, between reality and dream are blurred. Line, colour, plane and the quest for the correct relationships between these fundamental elements of painting step into the foreground. With some 70 works, the exhibition at the Zentrum Paul Klee pursues Anne Loch’s engagement with the medium of painting and the dissolution of her motifs.

Roberto Burle Marx. Modernismo tropical
17.10.2026–7.2.2027

In the first half of the 20th century, the Brazilian artist Roberto Burle Marx (1909–1994) revolutionised landscape architecture by transferring compositional principles from painting and music to nature. While his plans resemble abstract paintings, he integrated sculptures as well as three-dimensional and colourful wall surfaces into his landscape projects. In his paintings one encounters abstract plants and the play of light in the treetops. As a painter, graphic artist, sculptor, jewellery designer, stage and costume designer, environmental activist and collector, he participated – in the spirit of the Brazilian avant-garde – in the cultural appropriation and re-evaluation of what was considered ‘Brazilian’. In his parks, for example, he used native plant varieties, even though these were held to be inferior, and advocated for the study and protection of Brazilian flora.

Fokus. Hans Fischli (1909–1989)
24.1.–2.5.2026

Hans Fischli was a Swiss architect, artist and student of Paul Klee, Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky at the Bauhaus. After his return to Switzerland in the late 1920s, he produced a large series of coloured pencil and India ink drawings entitled Zellengebilde (cell formations). Some of these works were made during his three-month imprisonment for refusing military service. The title of the series refers to the prison cell in which the works were made, and serves as the starting point for the exhibition, which uses three architectural projects to address the political situation in the 1930s and 1940s.

Curators
Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen

Fokus. Klee’s versos
9.5.–23.8.2026

When painting and drawing, Paul Klee often used both sides of the picture support, whether paper, cardboard or canvas. In around 600 of a total of 9,600 works, there are drawings, watercolours or paintings on the reverse side. This remarkable phenomenon extends over all the phases of the artist’s career. Often the versos are more than mere supports for rejected ideas. They are part of an open, continuing working process, in which Klee connected the recto and verso in terms of form and content, as well as pictorially. The exhibition invites the viewer to discover this hidden treasure.

Curator
Marie Kakinuma

Fokus. Florence Henri (1893–1982)
29.8.2026–10.1.2027

Florence Henri was a real globetrotter of modernism. Born in New York in 1893, she lived with her family in Paris, Munich, Vienna and finally the Isle of Wight in England. As a young woman she stayed with her aunt in Rome, where she studied piano at the conservatoire. During a stay in Berlin in the 1910s she met the avant-garde art scene and began to study painting.

She later continued her studies at the Académie Moderne in Paris. In April 1927, she attended the Bauhaus in Dessau, where Lucia Moholy-Nagy encouraged her to take up photography. Early in 1928, she abandoned painting entirely, and over the following years devoted herself to experimental photography.