David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of work by Paul Klee (1879–1940) at the gallery's 537 West 20th Street location in New York. Organised in collaboration with the Klee Family, this will be the gallery's third solo exhibition of the revered modernist's work, following 1939, at David Zwirner New York in 2019, and Late Klee, at David Zwirner London in 2020. While those exhibitions focused on Klee's work from the middle to late 1930s, this presentation will explore Klee's singular use of colour and line during the 1920s and 1930s, offering a concise yet instructive overview of the artist's practice from his mature and late phases.
On view will be a range of key works from the Klee Family collection that visualise the artist's immense skill as a colourist and a draftsman. Several works from the early 1920s—around the time Klee began teaching as a 'form master' at the newly founded Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany—feature vibrantly colored grid-like fields whose appearances vacillate between landscape and pure abstraction. These will be presented alongside intimate graphic works composed of abstract, fractal-like forms or delicate, meandering webs and networks of lines. Complementing the high-modernist style of those works will be others that highlight Klee's unique and varied approach to the human figure. In some works, individual subjects appear as mechanomorphic assemblies of shapes and lines, while other representations are more diaristic and at times caricaturish—accomplished with an economy of means that makes them evocative and ambiguous. Created during the tumult of the interwar years in Europe, the works in this exhibition testify to Klee's status as a pioneering figure in the history of modern art, while the formal sophistication and deeply personal nature of the works underscore why Klee's art continues to resonate with viewers and artists today.
Press release courtesy David Zwirner
537 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
United States
www.davidzwirner.com
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