feeling BLUE

The story goes that Yves Klein was obsessed by the blue sky in Nice, feeling its luminosity was mesmerizing. His life became a quest to create a blue that was as powerful as that sky. Yves Klein was many things, an inventor, a minimalist, an artist, and a showman. He was devoted to chroma, but none more than the patented color of his own invention, Yves Klein Blue. While very few artists in history have ever been so directly linked to one hue, Yves Klein’s viewpoint on blue is poetic. He states, "Blue is the invisible becoming visible. Blue has no dimensions; it is beyond the dimensions of which other colors partake."

Charles Paul Wilp, Yves Klein on a ladder in front of his sponge relief at the Neues Stadttheater in Gelsenkirchen Germany, Berlin, BPK © VG Bild-Kunst © ADAGP, Paris 2019 Photo © BPK, Berlin

Collaborating with a chemical retailer, Klein discovered that there was a polymer that could fix the blue pigment so it would not lose any of its intensity. He named the shade IKB— International Klein Blue. He called many of his paintings post invention Monochromes, pure single-color pigment. Yves Klein died at the young age of 34 of a heart attack, many believe the chemicals involved in his pigment contributed to his early death.

“Leap into the Void,” in particular emphasizes Klein’s interest in Eastern philosophy. To date Japanese collectors and museums still display a very strong desire for his work. In the United States, that momentum is gaining.

Yves Klein "Saut dans le Vide", 1960 Silver print 9 3/4” × 7 7/8” Lee Gallery

“The genius of Klein is becoming more and more apparent,” says Catherine Wood, Tate Modern’s curator of contemporary art and performance. “He has been dismissed by some art historians as a charlatan or – because of his use of naked female models – as conventional and sexist, but his strategies were playfully critical and are becoming more significant in their influence for the younger generation. It could be argued that he was a critical prankster on par with Duchamp.”

Dry pigment and synthetic resin, natural sponges and pebbles on panel 78” x 65” x 5 1/2” Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands © The Estate of Yves Klein c/o ADAGP, Paris

Regardless of how you view or define Yves Klein, he manifested what he saw and felt, and the color he created will always remain part of our history.

MORE TO EXPLORE:
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140828-the-man-who-invented-a-colour
https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2017/april/28/what-was-it-with-yves-klein-and-blue/
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-yves-klein-legacy-is-much-more-than-blue
https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/21-facts-about-yves-klein