ART-PRESENTATION: Yves Klein-A Retrospective
In a period of prodigious creativity lasting from 1954 to his death from heart attack at the age of 34 in 1962, Yves Klein altered the course of Western Art. He did so thanks to his commitment to the spiritually uplifting power of colour: gold, rose, but above all, blue. In fact, his chromatic devotion was so profound that in 1960 he patented a colour of his own invention, which he called International Klein Blue.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Fundación Proa Archive
There is a story that says that, Klein, discover his famous blue in Hydra, a Greek Island, he had visited this period, and stayed and worked in Mrs. Paouri traditional mansion, another story says that in 1956, while on holiday in Nice, he experimented with a polymer binder to preserve the luminescence and powdery texture of raw yet unstable ultramarine pigment. He would eventually patent his formula as International Klein Blue (IKB) in 1960. “Yves Klein. A retrospective” at Fundación Proa in Buenos Aires, is the first retrospective in Latin America of Yves Klein, one of the most influential figures of the post-war era, whose short but extraordinarily creative career continues to inspire new generations of artists worldwide. The exhibition brings together more 70 works and 100 archival documents that include his first monochromatic paintings of 1955, his famous works in International Klein Blue, his “Fire” paintings, “Planetary-reliefs”, “Rain and Wind Cosmogonies”, “Anthropometries”, “Sponge-Sculptures”, his works on gold and his “Leap into the Void”. Covering painting, sculpture, performance, theatre, music, film, and architecture, the French artist combined artistic practice with spirituality, the power of the force of nature and the exploration of a path to the absolute. He shifted the focus from the material object to a “Immaterial sensibility”, challenging the preexistent notions about art and infusing them with a new sense of spirituality through pure color. Yves Klein made his name with an exhibition held in Milan in January 1957 that included 11 of his unframed, identical signature blue monochromes, one of which was bought by the Italian artist Lucio Fontana. This exhibition ushered in what Klein called his “Blue Revolution”, and soon he was slapping IKB onto all sorts of objects, such as sponges, globes and busts of Venus. Even his “Living Sculptures” dipped their flesh in IKB. His most notorious performance, occurred in March 1960, at the opening of his exhibition “Anthropometries of the Blue Epoch” in Paris. On this occasion, Klein appeared before an audience wearing a formal tailcoat and white bowtie. While nine musicians played his “Monotone-Silence Symphony” (a single note drawn out for 20 minutes, followed by a further 20 minutes of quiet), Klein directed three naked models as they covered themselves with sticky blue paint, before imprinting images of their bodies upon a white canvas. The models had become, he said, “Living brushes”.
Info: Curator: Daniel Moquay, Fundación Proa, Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1929, Buenos Aires, Duration 18/3-31/7/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-19:00, www.proa.org
