Every year, coinciding with Art Basel we present a special project at der TANK, the exhibition space of the Institute Art Gender Nature at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel. This year’s exhibition reunites around thirty paintings by Peter Klein. Blumen blühen, wo bist du? constitutes Klein’s first institutional exhibition in Switzerland and one of his first shows in many years. The works represent two families of works—homes and flowers—he did in the 1970s and 1980s, before he arrived in Ernen, Valais, in Switzerland.

Both, his biography—born as a German in Romania, educated in Bucharest and Munich, and in “exile” since the 1980s in Switzerland—and the subject matter of his work seem especially relevant today. Borders that do not necessarily overlap with the identities of the inhabitants of a place, cultural shifts and aesthetic research constitute the basis of a deeply moving artistic production. Also displacement is to blame for his almost invisible presence in the exhibition programs. Peter Klein rooted his life and his practice in a small community in the mountains of Switzerland where he has been active as an artist and as an art teacher but not necessarily seeking for being part of exhibition programs in the Swiss centers. For this reason, this presentation constitutes a unique opportunity to discover his work but also to be the witness of a way of believing in the rural that has been so present in our conversations since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Peter Klein’s artistic language is simple. His work shows a strong believe in form and composition and the two main tools to structure an image. Pigment, then, reinforces the message that we normally project on to the canvas. Color means mood. Form means structure. A structure that refers to the self, to the possibility of standing, to the question of being taken care, being hosted. Home may be a flower and the house may be a burden. Inverted forms, inverted proportions refer to the need of revisiting all the categories and notions of belonging that, over centuries, have been imposed into us. Us as individuals and us as communities that share certain believes that hold us together. What if all we believe disappears? We know this is the reality of many millions of individuals that see how their homes vanished but also experience the difficulties of being taking into another community’s dreams.

The presentation and the selection of the work has been possible thanks to the very active help of Peter Klein’s son, Emil Michael Klein.