Publisher's Synopsis
What do Louis Aragon, Antonin Artaud, Paul Éluard, Joan Miró, and André Masson have to do with the painter and Bauhaus master Paul Klee? This cross-genre and fascinating subject is examined for the first time in a multifaceted exhibition. The fact that the French Surrealists saw their key concepts such as "dreams," "the cosmos," and "vision" reflected in the magical, transcendental Klee's painting and even made him their spiritus rector, is remarkable considering the backdrop of Europe's political situation between the world wars. The exhibition and catalogue shed light on this fascinating chapter of the relationship between artists and expose its enormous art-historical dimension. Organized according to individual subject areas such as "Écriture automatique," "The World as a Dream," and "Portraits and Masks," the book provides readers with information about this important interface between the literary and artistic avant-garde in Europe during a turbulent era. (French edition ISBN 978-3-7757-4155-2) An additional booklet contains further material in the original languages, primarily in French: extensive correspondence between Paul Klee and the Surrealists as well as other texts by important contemporaries such as Georges Bataille, Robert Desnos, Marcel Duchamp, Paul Éluard and others.Exhibition: Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern 18.11.2016-12.3.2017.
