Etel Adnan

The Zentrum Paul Klee has the unique opportunity to conceive an exhibition in close collaboration with poet, painter and philosopher Etel Adnan. The France-based Lebanese artist is one of the most significant representatives of modern Arab culture. The exhibition in the Zentrum Paul Klee is developed as a dialogue between her work and Paul Klee’s. Special attention is focused on her engagement with poetry, calligraphy and colour field painting.

Paul Klee was a crucial figure in Etel Adnan’s artistic development. While she was teaching philosophy and philosophy of art, she discovered the English translation of his diary in the early 1960s, at a moment when she started to draw and paint herself. Paul Klee was the first painter Etel Adnan fell in love with, she was captivated by his work and travelled to New York and other places to see more of his paintings. She was fascinated not only by the lines, colours and spatiality in his works but also by his writings. Etel Adnan and Paul Klee share a number of interests like literature, calligraphy, music, visual abstraction and both found important inspiration while travelling to Tunisia and Egypt.

Curators: Sébastien Délot, Fabienne Eggelhöfer

Press contact: Maria-Teresa Cano, press@kunstmuseumbern.ch / T +41 31 328 09 44