The Angel of History

Walter Benjamin, Paul Klee and the Berlin Angel 80 Years After the End of the War

Paul Klee, Angelus Novus, 1920, Öltransfer und Aquarell auf Papier, 318 x 242 mm, Geschenk von Fania und Gershom Scholem, Jerusalem; John Herring, Marlene und Paul Herring, Jo Carole und Ronald Lauder, New York

At the heart of the exhibition is a seminal artwork of the 20th century: Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus (1920), which was once owned by the Berlin-born philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892–1940). The artwork accompanied him into exile and was described by Benjamin in one of his final texts as an “angel of history”.
Borne aloft by a storm described as progress, the angel flies into the future, only to turn its back on it: its gaze is fixed on the past. In addition to this watercolour by Klee – which, as an exception, was able to be borrowed from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem – and the manuscripts of the aforementioned text by Benjamin, which are on loan from the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, the exhibition brings together several angels from Berlin museums that were damaged or burned during the Second World War, starting with the famous and now lost Saint Matthew and the Angel by Caravaggio, which will be exhibited here in the form of a projection.
In addition to this, the exhibition will also feature excerpts from Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire (1987), a film in which two angels stand watch over a divided Berlin and in which explicit reference is made to Klee’s watercolour and Benjamin’s interpretation of the artwork.

A special exhibition of the Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Runtime: Thu, 01/05/2025 to Tue, 15/07/2025

Takes place here:

• Bode-Museum