YVES KLEIN’S RADICAL BLUE

art

May 13

Yves Klein, an expert in striking movement and well-known for his infamous blue, spent a lifetime exploring the connection between spirit and matter, finding new ways to represent the immaterial and the infinite. Born in Nice, France, in the early 1920s, Yves Klein possibly composed one of the most important art rhapsodies of the post-war avant-garde. If you love his work as much as we do, stop by the Lévy Gorvy Dayan gallery and check out the recently opened exhibit ‘Yves Klein and the Tangible World.’

In collaboration with the Yves Klein Foundation, the exhibit features the artist's rarely displayed works, including a sculptural floor installation of "Pigment pur bleu" (Pure Blue Pigment, conceived in 1957), "Anthropométries" (1960–62), and "Peintures de feu" (Fire Paintings, 1961–62), as well as the artist's photographs and drawings.

Klein determined early on his obsession with the color blue and the deep connection between movement, energy, art, and life itself. The artist wanted to represent immaterial and infinite space through color while experimenting with movement, relying on motion and energy release gained from years of dedication to judo.

Widely recognized, Klein earned an international reputation by employing nude models, whom he called 'living brushes,' to leave evident impressions that served as 'marks of the immediate.' In 1958, during an epic private performance in Paris, a model covered in paint created an International Klein Blue (IKB) monochrome. The body trace paintings joined Klein’s artistic practice as a result of planned and devoted collaboration between the artist and his models, representing openness, liberation, and a celebration of being:

A Peculiar Work by the French Artist on View at Lévy Gorvy Dayan, 64th Street

‘The work of art must complete itself before my eyes and under my command... as soon as the work is realized, I stand there—present at the ceremony, spotless, calm, relaxed, worthy of it, and ready to receive it as it is born into the tangible world,’said Klein.

Absorbing the color and movement while blending different techniques, Klein proposed his own response to the concept of spirit and time, demonstrating the boundless space for viewers and infinite tension. This exhibition concludes the artist's oeuvre of over 30 works and is on view until May 25th. Hurry up!