Yves Klein

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Yves Klein (correct pronunciation: [ iv klɛ̃ ], born April 28, 1928 in Nice , † June 6, 1962 in Paris ) was a French painter , sculptor and performance artist . He was a co-founder and leading exponent of the art movement called Nouveau Réalisme in France.

Career

Yves Klein grew up as the son of the artist couple Marie Raymond and Fred Klein, partly in Paris and Nice, where he attended the École Nationale des Langues Orientales from 1944 to 1946 . 1946, at age 18, he created his "first infinite and intangible painting on the beach of Nice lying by signed the blue Mediterranean sky and explained to his first and greatest, monochrome '." The symbolic gesture took small beginnings of conceptual art of sixties and seventies ahead. In the same year, Klein began to move judo into the center of his interest and met Claude Pascal and Armand Fernandez ( Arman ) in Nice in 1947 , who accompanied him to the manifestation of the group of Nouveau Réalistes (New Realism). The first independent artistic and philosophical attempts were made here. The first versions of the Monoton Silence symphony were also made during this period . Klein studied Max Heindel's book La Cosmologie des Rose-Croix intensively and its mystical-Christian teachings and was a member of the Rosicrucian community himself from 1948 to 1952 . He also read L'Air et les songes. Essai sur l'imagination du mouvement by the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard , in whose reading a chapter is dedicated to the blue of the sky.

In 1949, after returning from a trip to Italy a year earlier, impressed by the blue of the frescoes in the Basilica of Assisi , he began to paint his first monochrome pictures, which he exhibited at home. In 1952 he learned Japanese at the École Nationale des Langues Orientales in Paris and traveled to Japan until 1953, where he was able to achieve the fourth dan in judo.

IKB 191 - International Small Blue

In 1955 he moved to Paris and founded the monochrome , monochrome pictures, in which he increasingly used a monochrome ultramarine blue , which he finally patented in 1960 under the name International Klein Blue (IKB) . The color-psychological effect of this (slightly reddish) shade of blue consists primarily of its pull on the viewer, who literally feels "drawn into the picture". First attempts in 1949, when Klein was working at a gilder in London and came into direct contact with the colored powder, failed because the pigment lost its luminosity as soon as the binder was added, and no adhesion occurred without a binder wanted to. In 1955, with the help of Edouard Adam, owner of a shop for art supplies , he found a solution to this problem: Rhodopas , normally used as a fixative , allowed the pigment to adhere while maintaining its luminosity.

In October 1955, Klein met the art critic Pierre Restany during the first public exhibition of his monochromes at Editions Lacoste in Paris. Restany developed a spontaneous affection for this idealistic artistic personality and found an emotional access to his ideas. Klein, although a utopian dreamer, had a clear artistic stance, but as "a tightrope walker between genius and charlatan" was dependent on art critics to spread his conception. In Restany the artist found a congenial interpreter who understood his artistic approach intuitively, a skill Klein described as “direct communication”. Restany not only became the artist's closest confidante, he became his most vehement advocate and henceforth formulated the literary and theoretical foundations for Klein's artistic positions.

Plaque on his home at 14 rue Campagne-Première in Paris

In February 1956 the exhibition Yves - Propositions monochrome was opened in the Galerie Colette Allendy , the concept of which was subsequently shown in the Galerie Apollinaire in Milan, on May 31, 1957 at Alfred Schmela in Düsseldorf and in the Galerie One in London. At Schmela, Klein met the German artists Heinz Mack and Otto Piene , who founded the Düsseldorf artist group ZERO in 1958 . In April 1958 the Iris Clert gallery presented the performance Le Vide (“The Empty”) by Yves Klein, which became legendary and 3000 visitors came to the opening alone. On the invitation card, Restany invited art lovers to attend a “manifestation of a perceptual synthesis”, which justified Klein's “[...] painterly search for an ecstatic and directly communicable emotion [...]”. During the exhibitions, Restany converted the title The Void into what was more aptly “The specialization of sensitivity in the original state as permanent painterly sensitivity”. There were no works of art to be seen in the exhibition, the immaculate white walls of the gallery, illuminated by neon tubes, were completely empty.

Yves Klein's grave in La Colle-sur-Loup

In 1960, the Manifesto Nouveau Réalisme was signed in his studio , and Klein became a member of the artist group of the same name, which was under Restany's direction.

On November 27, 1960, Klein undertook his famous leap into the void on rue Gentil-Bernard in Fontenay-aux-Roses , a performance photographed by Harry Shunk and John Kender.

On January 21, 1962, Yves Klein and Rotraut Uecker married . She is the sister of the artist Günther Uecker , who was a member of the artist group ZERO. A few months after the marriage, on June 6, 1962, Yves Klein died of a heart attack at the age of 34. On August 6th of that year Rotraut Klein gave birth to their son Yves Armand.

Artistic work

Yves Klein is considered an avant-garde artist and a forerunner of Pop Art . In addition, he organized his first performances ( action art ). Klein wrote essays and made several films. His monochrome picture compositions are best known , especially those he made in an ultramarine blue he developed and patented under the name International Klein Blue (IKB, = PB29, = CI 77007) , but also in gold and pink. A quiet, meditative way of working is typical for Klein.

Yves Klein's blue sponge reliefs for the music theater in the Revier in Gelsenkirchen

From 1957 onwards, Klein developed anthropometrics with models who painted the canvas with their bodies naked and soaked in blue paint. To this end, the first major event in 1960 was the Anthropometry of the Blue Era performance at the Galerie Internationale d'Art Contemporain in Paris . In addition, an orchestra played a piece composed by Klein, the Monotone Symphony , which consisted of only one sound. Klein created his largest and most important works between 1957 and 1959 in the new building of the music theater in the Revier in Gelsenkirchen . In collaboration with the architect Werner Ruhnau and other artists, he developed large wall-high blue reliefs especially for this building, some of which were covered with natural sponges. He also made designs for an unrealized theater forecourt, the "fire-water-air square". To do this, he experimented, among other things, with air curtains made of strong air currents, which, like a pane of glass, could for example keep out rain.

From 1957 he increasingly dematerialized his art until in 1958 he presented the whitewashed gallery space he had emptied in the Paris gallery Iris Clert as an immaterial exhibition of his blue monochromes. The exhibition was entitled Le vide (“The Empty”). He thus became part of the contemporary conceptual art movement .

Later he also used sponges painted in single colors blue or pink in assemblages . An example of the sponge pictures painted with gold paint is Relief éponge or from 1961. He made blue-soaked organic sculptures from sponges and exposed some of his pictures to the forces of nature of rain, wind and sun (cosmogonies). Further pictures (fire pictures) were created with a flamethrower or through body prints on synthetic resin objects, for example F 88 from 1961.

In 1969 Paul Wember published the catalog raisonné with the œuvre of Yves Klein at DuMont Schauberg Verlag , which documents works, biography, bibliography and exhibitions. The edition was limited to 1000 pieces.

Exhibitions

  • 1954: Madrid
  • 1955: Marseille
  • 1957: Milan: Monochrome proposals , Blue Era (eleven monochrome blue images)
  • 1957: Paris, Düsseldorf, London
  • 1958: Paris: Le Vide (“The Void”): an exhibition with white walls and no exhibits
  • 1959: Paris: sponge pictures
  • 1960: Paris: first performance with single-tone music and anthropometry (body prints)
  • 1960: Paris: Antagonismes , Yves Klein, le Monochrome , photo jump into the void in the newspaper "Dimanche - Le journal d'un seul jour"
  • 1961: Krefeld, Haus Lange : retrospective
  • 1964: documenta III , Kassel
  • 1968: 4th documenta , Kassel
  • 1994/1995: Cologne, Düsseldorf, Krefeld: retrospective
  • 2000: Nice, Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain , Yves Klein, La Vie, la vie elle-même qui est l'art absolu
  • 2004: Los Angeles, MAK Center for Art and Architecture: Yves Klein - Air Architecture
  • 2004/2005: Frankfurt / Main: Retrospective
  • 2005: New York, Storefront for Art and Architecture: Yves Klein - Air Architecture
  • 2005: Bilbao, Guggenheim Museum : retrospective
  • 2006: Passau, Museum of Modern Art : The leap into the void. Precious items of the Nouveau Réalisme
  • 2006: Vienna, Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) : Yves Klein - Air Architecture
  • 2006/2007: Paris, Center Pompidou : corps, couleur, immatériel
  • 2007: Vienna, MUMOK : Retrospective
  • 2013: Aarhus, ARoS: Klein / Byars / Kapoor

literature

Web links

Commons : Yves Klein  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c National Museums in Berlin (Ed.): The XX. Century. A century of art in Germany . Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-87584-869-1 , p. 243.
  2. ^ Yves Klein With the Void, Full Powers . In: Contemporary Art. Hatje Cantz Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7757-2649-8 .
  3. ^ National Museums in Berlin (Ed.): The XX. Century. A century of art in Germany . Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-87584-869-1 , p. 234.
  4. ^ A b Modern Art Center, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Ed.): Exhibition Dialogue on Contemporary Art in Europe . Museum of Modern Art, Vienna, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Ghent a. a., March 28, 1985 to June 16, 1985, p. 247.
  5. ↑ Francisco Calvo Seraller: (inlet): Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection. Guggenheim, Bilbao 2009, ISBN 978-84-95216-61-8 , p. 510.
  6. ^ Ingrid Pfeiffer, Carla Orthen: Biography . In: Oliver Berggruen, Max Hollein, Ingrid Pfeiffer (Ed.): Yves Klein. Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt am Main, p. 222 f.
  7. ↑ Max Hollein . In: Oliver Berggruen, Max Hollein, Ingrid Pfeiffer: Yves Klein. Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit 2004, ISBN 3-7757-1446-4 , p. 9.
  8. ^ Hannah Weitemeier: Yves Klein, 1928–1962: international Klein blue. Benedikt Taschen-Verlag, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-8228-5584-7 .
  9. ^ Karl Ruhrberg (Ed.): Alfred Schmela. Gallery owner · pioneer of the avant-garde. Wienand, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-87909-473-X , p. 25.
  10. ↑ Nuit Banai: Yves Klein's Adventure in the Void. In: Oliver Berggruen, Max Hollein, Ingrid Pfeiffer: Yves Klein. Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit, 2004, ISBN 3-7757-1446-4 , p. 22.
  11. ↑ jump into the void , entertainment in the portal yvesklein.de , accessed on 21 July 2013
  12. ↑ Description on the museum website, accessed on March 29, 2013 (English)
personal data
SURNAME Klein, Yves
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French painter, sculptor and performance artist
DATE OF BIRTH April 28, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Nice
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 1962
Place of death Paris