Yves Klein Overview

Much of abstract or conceptual art is considered as residing somewhere between two extremes -- either incredibly esoteric, or simplistic and childlike. It also often has a strong link to nature and the body, and the sense of immediacy to recreate... [more]

Much of abstract or conceptual art is considered as residing somewhere between two extremes -- either incredibly esoteric, or simplistic and childlike. It also often has a strong link to nature and the body, and the sense of immediacy to recreate the sensations thereof. Though monochromatic canvases may not seem like the most obvious manifestation of these principles (or particularly rife with meaning for that matter) -- the work of Yves Klein sought to establish a new way of creating art that would address all of these concerns. Growing up admist the beautiful Mediterranean, Klein was always very interested in the luscious, blue landscape of his youth. His early works seek to re-create the sense of limitlessness that the ocean and sky provide. By painting a canvas entirely blue, he created infinite spaces and established a very strong spiritual connection to nature. This obsession with blue later came to be manifested in his creation of International Klein Blue, a color he invented with the help of chemists, though it was never sold comercially. His work "Untitled blue monochrome (IKB 82)" (1950) exhibits the color and his obsession with monochromatic surfaces. Later on, he began to explore notions of the body as a means of creating art. His body paintings, or "anthropometries," saw the body as a "living paint brush" and recorded the physical energy of its every move. He began to paint bodies with the hue of International Klein Blue and direct them to flail and dance upon the canvas. This left a mark of their physical presence, while also replicating the form and likeness of the human body. In "Untitled Anthropometry (ANT 100)" (1960), Klein recorded the movement of his own body along with his future wife, which placed him as both creator and subject in the art-making process. Klein also engaged in performance art, in which he would recreate these anthropometrical experiments in front of a live audience. Together with the art critic Pierre Restany, Klein founded the New Realism movement in 1960, which ultimately sought to bridge the gap between life and art. They saw their work as being a "poetic recycling of urban, industrial and advertising reality" and were contemporaries to groups such as Pop-Art and Fluxus. New Realism, or, Nouveau Realisme, ended in 1970. Klein did not live to see it's demise; he died of a heart attack in Paris in 1962, at the age of 34. [show less]