“Paul Klee: Other Possible Worlds — a new narrative for the prolific modernist” by Ariella Budick
2026
Paul Klee would struggle to find his footing in today’s art world. He was too protean and too prolific to satisfy a market that values brand identity, which is why we know him mostly by a narrow slice of his abundant output. A nimble and imaginative modernist, he didn’t settle into one style, instead moving restlessly between idioms. At times he gave himself over to geometric rigor, constructing cities from delicate lines and finely calibrated hues. Elsewhere he conjured cartoonish creatures, their awkward bodies and wide eyes echoing the marks of a child’s hand. Some canvases glow with saturated colour; others read like ancient shards emerging from the shifting sands.
The Jewish Museum’s gloomily persuasive retrospective, “Paul Klee: Other Possible Worlds,” imposes an unexpected narrative on all that variety. I had always believed that a playfully ironic sensibility had carried him through his whole career. And so I hoped that the show would mitigate my mood, made dismal by war and its companions. No such luck. His paintings and drawings confirmed that things really are as bad as they seem. In that sense, the exhibition is uncomfortably attuned to the present.
