Yves Klein

Ever seeking the ethereal, the immaterial, the void, Yves Klein's mesmorizing IKB 170 from 1960 is an arresting example of one of his widely celebrated International Klein Blue monochromes- a term patented by Klein the same year denoting space, purity and freedom.  The alluring and hypnotic colour, an electrically charged and seemingly infinite blue, has become synonymous with Klein's name and his art.  Startling in presence, IKB 170 is a statement on the authenticity and intrinsic value in a work of art.

The Blue Epoch for Klein was officially inaugurated in January 1957 by an exhibition at Guido Le Noci's Galleria Apollinaire in Milan entitled L'Epoca Blu.  The title of the exhibition makes ironic reference in art historical terms to Picasso's famous Blue Period - but, as Thomas McEvilley reflects, "in Rosicrucian terms it indicates the age in which matter will be dissolved and humanity will return to the bodiless Eden of space-as-pure-spirit, which Heindel symbolized by blue" (in Exhibition Catalogue, Houston, Institute for the Arts, Rice University, Yves Klein 1928-1962: A Retrospective, 1982, p. 44).  Klein exhibited eleven blue monochromes of the same size but with different prices - making the powerful statement that each work of art possessed a uniqueness of its own despite their apparent similarity and their comparable material worth.  Klein insisted that the individual value of each work resides in the creativity instilled in it, that each work holds an inherent sensibility or aura which is immaterially present and irreproducible.  As Pierre Restany observed, "To Klein, in his pursuit of the absolute, the Blue appeared as an approach to imminent reality, which is infinite; this immaterial energy is self-sufficient" (ibid, p. 15). 

Klein's oeuvre is deeply rooted in philosophy and he drew on an array of sources, ranging from Zen Buddhism to the practice of Judo.  He preferred the purity of one unmediated colour and sought to create a more 'truthful' art.  In the IKB works, Klein employed a roller to apply uniform layers of paint, thereby ostracizing the personalised artist's touch from the picture surface.  Laying the foundations of a 'school of sensibility' Klein encouraged all those who wanted to learn the new language of art and dubbed himself 'Yves le Monochrome'.  His influence was felt and in Milan, Lucio Fontana bought an International Klein Blue monochrome and consequently moved his own work further into experiments with monochromy.  Further, Piero Manzoni was converted by the IKBs from a figurative style to his Achromes. 

Anti-illusionistic and anti-referential, the blue monochrome is ostensibly the most pure of compositions, yet hidden beneath the rich layers of textured pigment lies a profound and complex conceptual belief structure that has influenced generations of subsequent artists and established Klein as one of the pre-eminent artists of his generation.  The monochrome works are a synthesis of the modern and the post-modern: they engage with abstract art, taking non-representational art to its logical conclusion, whilst challenging the viewer's conception of what art is, or should be. For Yves Klein, monochrome did not infer simplicity, instead he understood it as depicting space without limits.  It provided the viewer with a transcendental experience of infinity, of the Void, as Klein referred to it.

The unity of the single colour created a composition that was without limit, conferring on the viewer a sense of vast scale, the infinite and immaterial nature of the universe, or The Void.  It is in the mind of the viewer that this is experienced, investing the art object with a performative function.  He wanted to induce independent sensations, feelings and reactions in the viewer, without giving them a depicted object or an abstract sign as a starting point, solely through the effect and qualities of the colour. 

Yves Klein's seductive IKB 170 embodies his romanticized notion of the immaterial world.  Constantly challenging the definition of art and its boundaries, Klein's work was poetry and philosophy, endlessly myth-making and questioning the outside world around him.  His influence, since his tragically premature death in 1962, has grown ever more substantial over the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. In the Mirror works of Gerhard Richter from the 1970s and the pigment works of Anish Kapoor from the 1980s onwards, one can sense that the spiritual and pictorial search for the Void continues as intensively as ever.